Grant: Foundation Grant

<html> <body> <p>The overarching objective of this research program is to investigate the causes of cardiometabolic risk factors among high risk ethnic groups across the life-course, &amp; to develop &amp; test interventions to reduce risk factors &amp; cardiovascular disease (CVD). Specific objectives among diverse ethnic populations include: 1) to identify health behaviours (i.e. dietary, activity patterns), genetic factors, &amp; community level factors which strongly influence the development of cardiometabolic risk factors in adults, 2) to identify the impact of the <em>in-utero</em> environment (i.e. maternal health behaviours in pregnancy), maternal &amp; newborn genetics &amp; epigenetics, &amp; early life health behaviours on the development of cardiometabolic factors in early childhood, &amp; 3) to test the effectiveness of culturally-tailored risk factor interventions to lower cardiometabolic risk factors &amp; ultimately CVD, among high risk ethnic populations (i.e. South Asians &amp; Aboriginal people).<br> <strong>How will this research program advance knowledge, health care, &amp; health outcomes in the short-term &amp; in the long-term?</strong>&nbsp; This research program addresses research gaps and will create new insights regarding the etiology of cardiometabolic risk factors &amp; CVD, &amp; identify new targets for intervention to reduce health disparities among high risk ethnic groups. Identification of the early-life exposures &amp; mechanisms (i.e. genetic, metabolomics, microbiome) related to cardiometabolic risk will be used to develop primordial prevention recommendations (i.e. before a risk factor develops), &amp; identification of modifiable exposures will be used to develop primary prevention recommendations for health care professionals &amp; policy development by high risk communities.</p> <p> <strong>The nature of the core expertise (disciplinary, professional, or methodological) being assembled:</strong> Dr. Anand&rsquo;s research program builds on her previous work in developing &amp; validating ethnic-specific measurement tools for dietary, physical activity, &amp; psychosocial exposures; previous success in recruiting large ethnic-specific cohorts, &amp; will leverage strengths in population health, genomics, metabolomics, &amp; clinical trials at McMaster. Dr. Anand&rsquo;s clinical expertise &amp; formal epidemiology training enables her to design &amp; conduct classical epidemiologic studies, integrate genomic &amp; metabolomic evaluations into them, &amp; use this information to design &amp; conduct randomized clinical trials i.e. she is able to move from knowledge generation to application within the same research program. Dr. Anand closely collaborates with Program Experts: Dr. Beyene (biostatistics &amp; data integration), Dr. DeSouza (Nutrition), Dr. Gerstein (Diabetes &amp; Clinical trials), &amp; Dr. Pare (Genetics) &amp;&nbsp; they will use their collective expertise to accomplish the research program objectives.<br> </p> <p> <strong>Description of the proposed mentoring &amp; training activities:</strong> Dr. Anand has assembled &amp; will continue to grow an outstanding team of researchers. Graduate students will be trained within the Health Research Methodology Masters &amp; PhD program in the Department of Clinical Epidemiology, McMaster. All trainees will contribute to protocol development and data analysis, and&nbsp;will attend weekly team meetings, monthly &ldquo;fellows rounds&rdquo;, &amp; have bi-weekly one to one meetings with Dr. Anand to discuss their research projects &amp; manuscripts.&nbsp; Dr. Anand and her Program Experts will co-supervise graduate students and post docs to promote a transdisciplinary exchange of knowledge and training.</p> </body> </html>