Project Grant R21MD021564

The National Institute for Minority Health and Health Disparities awarded the University of Alabama at Birmingham $201,362 on September 1, 2026, under the Minority Health and Health Disparities Research program (CFDA 93.307) to develop a continuous metabolic syndrome risk score for the Yup'ik Alaska Native population.

The recipient will integrate traditional clinical metabolic syndrome components—waist circumference, blood pressure, fasting plasma glucose, triglycerides, and HDL-cholesterol—with socioeconomic indicators including annual income, food security, and household size; behavioral factors such as tobacco use; stress levels; and cultural protective factors including Yup'ik language fluency and adherence to traditional ways of life. The project applies advanced statistical modeling to clinical research data from the Yup'ik population, where heart disease mortality runs 30 percent higher than the national average. The continuous risk score will provide a clinically meaningful metric sensitive to subtle changes in individual health status over time, improving opportunity for early preventive interventions compared to traditional binary metabolic syndrome criteria.

The work encompasses two primary objectives: development and validation of a sex-specific continuous metabolic syndrome risk score using standard metabolic syndrome components for the Yup'ik population, and evaluation of whether predictive power improves through inclusion of additional cardiometabolic risk factors—non-HDL cholesterol, TC/HDL and LDL/HDL ratios, and hemoglobin A1C—alongside socioeconomic, behavioral, stress, and cultural resilience factors.

The award period runs from September 1, 2026, to February 29, 2028, with place of performance in Birmingham, Alabama.