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UCSF Project to Reduce High Blood Pressure Among Blacks

Published

12 years ago

June 29, 2013

By Jeffrey Norris, UC SF

A new $11 million grant to Kaiser Permanente Northern California and UC San Francisco will support a research program aimed at lowering stroke risk among Black populations and younger stroke victims by targeting high blood pressure, also known as hypertension.”Hypertension is much more common in Blacks than in whites and is less likely to be controlled. Despite dramatic improvements in blood pressure control among Kaiser Permanente members in Northern California over the past decade, there is currently a 5 percent disparity between our black and white members,” said Stephen Sidney, MD, MPH, director of research clinics with the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research. Sidney is director of the new Stroke Prevention / Intervention Research Program, awarded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), and principal investigator for Kaiser Permanente Northern California. “The goal of the first study in this research program is to decrease the disparity by 4 percent over one year,” Sidney said. “Hypertension is on the rise in the United States, despite the fact that we know what causes it, and we know how to treat it,” said UCSF’s Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, MD, PhD, director of the UCSF Center for Vulnerable Populations at San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center. Bibbins-Domingo is principal investigator of the research program for UCSF and lead investigator for two of the program’s four main components.

Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, MD, PhD

In the United States, Blacks are twice as likely as whites to experience a first stroke; blacks are also more likely to die as a result of a stroke.
Younger adults are also a major focus of the new grant. Recent studies suggest that strokes among younger adults are becoming more common, due to an increase in risk factors such as high blood pressure.
Adolescents increasingly are affected by high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes. “We want to discover how these risk factors increase future stroke risk in different populations,” Bibbins-Domingo said.
The new stroke research program includes the following components:
Clinical study to close hypertension disparity: “Shake, Rattle & Roll” is a pragmatic, clustered, randomized clinical trial led by Mai N. Nguyen-Huynh, MD, MAS, of the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research. The goal is to collaborate with Black patients at Kaiser Permanente’s Oakland Medical Center to close the disparity in blood pressure control rates between black and white members.
Each primary-care physician is randomly assigned to provide all black patients with either: 1) usual care; 2) enhanced monitoring of blood pressure management; or 3) a culturally tailored healthy lifestyle and diet coaching intervention.
Research to understand stroke risk factors: Heather Fullerton, MD, pediatric stroke neurologist at UCSF, will lead a study among patients to better quantify disparities in stroke risk factors in young adulthood over time. Fullerton aims to identify unrecognized factors that may contribute to stroke risk and disparities in young adults.
Modeling of stroke-risk trends: Bibbins-Domingo will lead studies using a computer simulation of stroke and heart disease in U.S. populations – the Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) Policy Model – to predict the national impact of stroke risk trends on stroke incidence and health disparities.
Training future researchers: Bibbins-Domingo will lead efforts to expand training in the study of health disparities at UCSF. She will coordinate efforts to identify trainees interested in stroke and cardiovascular disease prevention and health disparities and foster collaborations between these trainees and other investigators in the research program.
The grant to Kaiser Permanente and UCSF to reduce hypertension is one of four awarded nationwide to target stroke, to be funded with up to $40 million over five years.
“These research efforts will give us the traction we need to control the greatest modifiable stroke risk factor,” said Walter J. Koroshetz, MD, deputy director of NINDS, which is part of the National Institutes of Health.

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Oakland Post: Week of December 25 – 31, 2024

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of December 25 – 31, 2024

Published

1 day ago

December 26, 2024

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Bay Area

Glydways Breaking Ground on 14-Acre Demonstration Facility at Hilltop Mall

Glydways has been testing its technology at CCTA’s GoMentum Station in Concord for several years. The company plans to install an ambitious 28-mile Autonomous Transit Network in East Contra Costa County. The new Richmond facility will be strategically positioned near that project, according to Glydways.

Published

4 days ago

December 24, 2024

Oakland Post

Image of planned Richmond facility courtesy of Glydways.

The Richmond Standard

Glydways, developer of microtransit systems using autonomous, small-scale vehicles, is breaking ground on a 14-acre Development and Demonstration Facility at the former Hilltop Mall property in Richmond, the Contra Costa Transportation Authority (CCTA) reported on social media.

Glydways, which released a statement announcing the project Monday, is using the site while the mall property undergoes a larger redevelopment.

“In the interim, Glydways will use a portion of the property to showcase its technology and conduct safety and reliability testing,” the company said.

The new Richmond development hub will include “over a mile of dedicated test track, enabling Glydways to refine its solutions in a controlled environment while simulating real-world conditions,” the company said.

Visitors to the facility will be able to experience on-demand travel, explore the control center and visit a showroom featuring virtual reality demonstrations of Glydways projects worldwide.

The hub will also house a 13,000-square-foot maintenance and storage facility to service the growing fleet of Glydcars.

“With this new facility [at the former Hilltop Mall property], we’re giving the public a glimpse of the future, where people can experience ultra-quiet, on-demand transit—just like hailing a rideshare, but with the reliability and affordability of public transit,” said Tim Haile, executive director of CCTA.

Janet Galvez, vice president and investment officer at Prologis, owner of the Hilltop Mall property, said her company is “thrilled” to provide space for Glydways and is continuing to work with the city on future redevelopment plans for the broader mall property.

Richmond City Manager Shasa Curl added that Glydways’ presence “will not only help test new transit solutions but also activate the former Mall site while preparation and finalization of the Hilltop Horizon Specific Plan is underway.

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Alameda County

Last City Council Meeting of the Year Ends on Sour Note with Big Budget Cuts

In a five to one vote, with Councilmembers Carroll Fife and Janani Ramachandran excused, the council passed a plan aimed at balancing the $130 million deficit the city is facing. Noel Gallo voted against the plan, previously citing concerns over public safety cuts, while Nikki Fortunato-Bas, Treva Reid, Rebecca Kaplan, Kevin Jenkins, and Dan Kalb voted in agreement with the plan.

Published

4 days ago

December 24, 2024

Magaly Muñoz

Oakland City Council voted on a plan to balance the $130 million deficit at their last regular meeting of 2024. The plan reduces police spending by $25 million, temporarily closes two fire stations, and guts the cultural arts programs. iStock photo.

By Magaly Muñoz

In the last lengthy Tuesday meeting of the Oakland City Council for 2024, residents expressed strong opposition to the much needed budget cuts before a change in leadership was finalized with the certification of election results.

Oakland police and fire departments, the ambassador program, and city arts and culture will all see significant cuts over the course of two phases.

Phase 1 will eliminate two police academies, brown out two fire stations, eliminate the ambassador program, and reduce police overtime by nearly $25 million. These, with several other cuts across departments, aim to save the city $60 million. In addition, the council simultaneously approved to transfer restricted funds into its general purpose fund, amounting to over $40 million.

Phase 2 includes additional fire station brownouts and the elimination of 91 jobs, aiming to recover almost $16 million in order to balance the rest of the budget.

Several organizations and residents spoke out at the meeting in hopes of swaying the council to not make cuts to their programs.

East Oakland Senior Center volunteers and members, and homeless advocates, filled the plaza just outside of City Hall with rallies to show their disapproval of the new budget plan. Senior residents told the council to “remember that you’ll get old too” and that disturbing their resources will only bring problems for an already struggling community.

While city staff announced that there would not be complete cuts to senior center facilities, there would be significant reductions to staff and possibly inter-program services down the line.

Exiting council member and interim mayor Bas told the public that she is still hopeful that the one-time $125 million Coliseum sale deal will proceed in the near future so that the city would not have to continue with drastic cuts. The deal was intended to save the city for fiscal year 2024-25, but a hold up at the county level has paused any progress and therefore millions of dollars in funds Oakland desperately needs.

The Coliseum sale has been a contentious one. Residents and city leaders were originally against using the deal as a way to balance the budget, citing doubts about the sellers, the African American Sports and Entertainment Group’s (AASEG), ability to complete the deal. Council members Reid, Ramachandran, and Gallo have called several emergency meetings to understand where the first installments of the sale are, with little to no answers.

Bas added that as the new Alameda County Supervisor for D5, a position she starts in a few weeks, she will do everything in her power to push the Coliseum sale along.

The city is also considering a sales tax measure to put on the special election ballot on April 15, 2025, which will also serve as an election to fill the now vacant D2 and mayor positions. The tax increase would raise approximately $29 million annually for Oakland, allowing the city to gain much-needed revenue for the next two-year budget.

The council will discuss the possible sales tax measure on January 9.

Magaly Muñoz

A graduate of Sacramento State University, Magaly Muñoz’s journalism experience includes working for the State Hornet, the university’s student-run newspaper and conducting research and producing projects for “All Things Considered” at National Public Radio. She also was a community reporter for El Timpano, serving Latino and Mayan communities, and contributed to the Sacramento Observer, the area’s African American newspaper.

Muñoz is one of 40 early career journalists who are part of the California Local News Fellowship program, a state-funded initiative designed to strengthen local news reporting in California, with a focus on underserved communities.

The fellowship program places journalism fellows throughout the state in two-year, full-time reporting positions.

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