HBCU Letter

Letter/E-mail of Invitation

FROM: Carmen Arroyo, PhD

American Institutes for Research

carroyo@air.org

RE: Survey to Determine the Efforts of Historically Black Colleges and Universities to Eliminate Health Disparities

DATE:

The American Institutes for Research (AIR) has been contracted by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Resources and Services Administration (HHS/HRSA), Office of Minority Health to conduct an assessment of the engagement of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in campus and community-based activities designed to eliminate health disparities among African Americans.

We have identified four broad categories of activities common among HBCUs, including:

• research and scholarship;

• research infrastructure development;

• campus-based programs aimed at students and/or employees; and

• community outreach and services implemented by HBCU faculty or students.

We will be asking administrators at all HBCUs who are familiar with efforts implemented at their institutions to participate in a web-based survey, which includes questions related to each of these activity areas. The survey is designed to help us uncover and more clearly articulate the types of support that HBCUs provide in these activity areas, and to determine how HRSA may continue to assist HBCUs in their efforts.

We are sending you this e-mail to request your participation in this survey. We know that you are very busy in your work and have designed the survey to take no more than 40-45 minutes to complete. Following is login information that will allow you to access the survey. You may complete the entire survey in one sitting or complete parts of the form as time allows and return to it at your convenience. Your responses to this survey are completely confidential.

We greatly appreciate your participation in this survey and welcome your input so that we can ensure that we capture the best information possible about efforts underway at HBCUs designed to eliminate health disparities. If you have any questions about the survey, please feel free to contact the Principal Investigator for this project, Carmen Arroyo, carroyo@air.org.