Proceedings of the 2024 and 2025 Research Centers in Minority Institutions (RCMI) Consortium National Conferences

Dear Colleagues,

We are organizing a Special Issue of the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (IJERPH), entitled “Proceedings of the 2024 and 2025 Research Centers in Minority Institutions (RCMI) Consortium National Conferences”, to highlight the research advances that were reported during the periods of April 29–May 01, 2024, and March 16–March 19, 2025, at the following website: https://rcmiconf.com. IJERPH is a peer-reviewed scientific journal that publishes articles and communications in the interdisciplinary area of environmental health sciences and public health. For detailed information on the journal, we refer you to https://www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph.

Building on the successes of the previous RCMI national and international symposia on health disparities, the themes of the 2024 and 2025 RCMI Consortium National Conferences were “Inclusive Excellence” and “Leading the Translation of Scientific and Research Advances into Culturally Competent, Measurable, and Sustained Improvements in Health Outcomes”, respectively. These two RCMI Program Grantees Conferences gathered the principal investigators/program directors (PI/PDs) of the RCMI U54 Centers, as well as other senior scientists and core leaders from each center, research project leaders, pilot project awardees, key community partners, NIH leaders, and staff to exchange information and discuss opportunities for collaboration and strategies for solving shared challenges in the following areas: (1) project administration and coordination among sites; (2) research resources to support scientific and multi-site projects; (3) early-stage investigator development and mentoring; and (4) community engagement. The scientific sessions and oral and poster presentations showcased the best scientific research across the RCMI Consortium. Hence, the overarching goal of the conference was to advance the science of minority health and health disparities through the development and implementation of collaborative solutions to improve minority health and reduce or eliminate health disparities.

At the 2024 conference, the opening remarks were made by the NIMHD (National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities) Director, Dr. Eliseo Perez-Stable, and Dr. Marie Bernard, who highlighted the NIH Workforce Diversity Initiatives and Funding Opportunities. The opening session also highlighted state-of-the-art research conducted at NIGMS (National Institute of General Medical Sciences), NHLBI (National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute), NIAID (National Institute on Drug Abuse), NCI (National Cancer Institute), and CSR (Center for Scientific Review) by leaders Dr. John Lorsch, Dr. Garry Gibbons, Dr. Wilson Compton, Dr. Douglas R. Lowy, and Dr. Noni Byrnes, respectively. Finally, the opening session provided an update on NIMHD’s evaluation of the RCMI Program and an update on the progress of the RCMI Coordinating Center in defining common metrics and data collection standards for evidence-based evaluation of the RCMI U54 Centers.

At the 2025 conference, the opening session featured keynote remarks by Dr. Eliseo Perez-Stable, Director of the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD), who highlighted NIMHD's ongoing programs, strategic initiatives, and funding opportunities aimed at advancing the science of health disparities. Additional distinguished speakers included Dr. Wilson M. Compton, Deputy Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA); Dr. Eric D. Green, Director of the National Human Genome Research Institute; and Dr. George A. Mensah, Director of the Center for Translation Research and Implementation Science at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI). Each provided insightful overviews of the cutting-edge research and priorities at their respective institutes.  Another highlight of the general session was the presentation of the Consensus Report by the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) on the use of the social constructs of race and ethnicity in biomedical research. This presentation was delivered by Dr. Roy M. Wilson, Distinguished Professor of Ophthalmology at Wayne State University, and followed by a robust panel discussion featuring Dr. Matthew F. Hudson, Director of Cancer Care Delivery Research at Prisma Health and Professor of Medicine at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine; Dr. Keith C. Norris, Distinguished Professor of Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA; Dr. Elizabeth O. Ofili, Contact PI of the RCMI Coordinating Center at Morehouse School of Medicine; and Dr. Genevieve Wojcik, Associate Professor of Epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University. The plenary sessions (1) highlighted the RCMI’s contribution to national scientific advances and innovation in NIH priorities and (2) discussed the impact and ethical considerations of artificial intelligence in biomedical and health disparities research. Concurrent workshops featured the following RCMI areas of special emphasis and research collaborations: (1) Investigator Development Consortium; (2) Community Engagement and Evaluation Consortium; (3) Research Infrastructure Consortium; (4) EQBMED—Equitable Breakthroughs in Medicines Development RCMI-CC/PhRMA Foundation Collaboration; (5) NRMN (National Research Mentoring Networks)—Alumni, Coaches, and Developers Networking and Writing; (6) RCMI Administrators; (7) RCMI Clinical Research Network for Health Equity Multi-Site Collaboration—UG3/UH3; and (8) Data Science Collaboration NOSIs/All of Us Workbench Projects. These and other workshops demonstrated how the 22 RCMI U54 Centers can showcase their scientific discoveries and community health impact using the new RCMI Consortium website and shared solutions for efficient data collection for progress reports, evaluation, and other research-related deliverables.

The conference participants, including biomedical scientists, healthcare practitioners, trainees, clinicians, pharmacists, nurses, and other allied healthcare professionals, as well as community and industry partners, discussed and developed research strategies and approaches for eliminating health disparities. They also examined career development opportunities and discussed the best methods and approaches for training the next generation of biomedical scientists and clinical researchers, as well as for engaging community partners and industry collaborators.

Focusing on basic biomedical, behavioral, clinical, and translational research, the conference abstracts address several key areas, including basic and applied minority and health disparities research; behavioral and social determinants of health; capacity building in health disparities research; clinical and translational minority health and health disparity research; community-based participatory research; data science/big data applications to health sciences; health and healthcare policy research; health-related technologies; and research in special population subgroups. Hence, several important topics were covered, including the following:

• Behavioral and social sciences;
• Biomedical informatics and computational biology;
• Cancer health disparities research;
• Cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease;
• Women’s, children’s, and adolescents’ health;
• Clinical and translational science;
• Cellular and molecular biology of human diseases;
• Complementary and alternative medicine;
• Environmental health and toxicology;
• Health literacy and health information technology;
• HIV/AIDS and infectious diseases;
• Nanoscience and nanotechnology;
• Neuroscience and mental health disorders;
• Public health sciences.

This Special Issue aims to showcase the excellence in research and scientific discoveries on the above-listed topics. The submission of full manuscripts of original research, comprehensive reviews, and/or short communications on any of these topics presented at the conference is strongly encouraged. If you are interested in submitting a manuscript, please visit www.ijerph.com to register and submit your manuscript by the deadline: December 31, 2025. Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere. All manuscripts will be thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process.

Yours faithfully,

Prof. Dr. Elizabeth O. Ofili
Prof. Dr. Sandra P. Chang
Dr. Monica Kazlausky Esquivel
Prof. Dr. Emma Fernandez-Repollet
Prof. Dr. Daniel F. Sarpong
Prof. Dr. Paul B. Tchounwou
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2500 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• behavioral and social sciences
• biomedical informatics and computational biology
• cancer health disparities research
• cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease
• women, child, and adolescent health
• clinical and translational science
• cellular and molecular biology of human diseases
• complementary and alternative medicine
• environmental health and toxicology
• health literacy and health information technology
• HIV/AIDS and infectious diseases
• nanoscience and nanotechnology
• neuroscience and mental health disorders
• public health sciences