Comprehensive Healthy Living Research Center

The UAB Comprehensive Healthy Living Research Center has announced the inaugural awardees of its pilot program, Innovations in Community-Engaged and Population Health Research to Address Chronic Disease.

Communities across the Southeast continue to face disproportionately high rates of chronic diseases linked to poor diet, including obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. Addressing those challenges requires more than encouraging healthier eating; it also means understanding the barriers that influence the foods people can access and afford. To support that work, the Alabama Community Engagement Alliance (AL CEAL) has selected Catheryn Orihuela, Ph.D., assistant professor in the UAB Heersink School of Medicine Department of Family and Community Medicine, as the recipient of its 2026 Southeast CEAL Research Initiative Pilot Grant.

For more than 30 years, Rose Wilkins, Ph.D., has worked to help people navigate life's challenges through wellness, beginning with students facing behavioral and emotional challenges in Chicago Public Schools. What started as a simple idea—creating calming spaces where students could de-escalate and regroup—eventually became City Blocks Wellness, an organization dedicated to community wellness.

Research does not happen in isolation. Turning an idea into a well-designed study requires expertise, resources, and collaboration through every stage. The Comprehensive Healthy Living Research Center’s Research Program brings investigators together with the infrastructure and support needed to advance community-engaged and population health research focused on chronic disease prevention and healthy living. Through the Center’s programs and cores, as well as its knowledgeable faculty and staff, investigators interested in community-engaged research can draw on support and expertise from across UAB.

When Dua Khan, a Master of Science in Global Health candidate at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, told family and friends that she would be spending her summer in Birmingham, Alabama, she often heard the same question: Why Alabama? Her answer was to be the first-ever participant in the Heersink Student Mobility Program at the UAB Heersink School of Medicine.

The path to becoming an independent researcher requires more than learning how to conduct a study. Investigators must develop research and grant-writing skills, build strong mentorship and professional networks, and learn how to navigate the many steps involved in building a successful research career. The UAB Comprehensive Healthy Living Research Center’s Education & Career Development Program helps current and future researchers build skills important to their career. Through workshops, seminars, and other development opportunities, students, early-stage investigators (ESI), and established researchers can enhance their knowledge, expand their networks, and advance their careers.

For many people, navigating health care or making lifestyle changes can feel overwhelming. Oftentimes, a friendly, familiar face can make challenges like appointment follow-ups, transportation barriers, and healthy lifestyle changes feel more manageable. Community Health Coaches, also known as community health workers, are often those familiar faces. Whether they're encouraging neighbors to learn their health numbers at a local wellness event, supporting participants after a health screening, or helping residents get involved in exercise and nutrition programs, coaches play an important role in connecting communities with the resources they need to live healthier lives.

Few challenges to the health of our state demand more urgent attention than chronic disease. Heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and related conditions continue to affect far too many individuals and families across Alabama. Addressing these complex challenges requires innovation, collaboration, education, and community engagement. Encouragingly, we are seeing remarkable momentum across each of these areas.

The UAB Comprehensive Healthy Living Research Center convened federal, state, academic, industry, and community leaders on April 15 for its inaugural symposium, bringing together different perspectives to advance community-engaged research efforts across Alabama and the Deep South.

While national and state leaders address population health at scale, community-engaged research takes shape through ongoing partnerships that connect academic expertise with local priorities.

At the Comprehensive Healthy Living Research Center, research is grounded in the realities of the communities with which we collaborate. That connection is facilitated by the Partnerships & Engagement Program, a team dedicated to ensuring research is co-created with communities, not just conducted amongst them.

Chronic disease remains one of the most persistent challenges in health care. The UAB Comprehensive Healthy Living Research Center is advancing this work by convening leaders in community-engaged, population health, and chronic disease research at its inaugural symposium, featuring special guest panelists George Mensah, M.D., and Scott Harris, M.D., MPH, and keynote speaker Admiral Brian Christine, M.D.

The UAB Comprehensive Healthy Living Research Center will host its inaugural symposium, “Advancing the Science of Community-Engaged Research to Prevent Chronic Disease and Improve Health,” on Wednesday, April 15, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Marnix E. Heersink Conference Center. The event brings together researchers, clinicians, public health leaders, and community partners, reflecting the center’s mission to strengthen research that connects scientific discovery with the real-world needs of communities.

Behind every successful study is a network of people willing to participate, share their experiences, and contribute to knowledge that can improve health outcomes. At the Comprehensive Healthy Living Research Center, that critical connection between investigators and participants is supported by the Participant Access to Research Core (PARC).

At the beginning of each year, many people set health-related goals with the best of intentions. Yet within a few months, those goals often fall away. While this pattern can feel discouraging, it is not a failure of motivation or discipline. Instead, it reflects how the brain, as well as our environment, form – and resist – behavioral change.

Dr. Michael Wesley, senior pastor of Greater Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church in Birmingham’s West End neighborhood, knows how chronic disease affects communities. He deals with it on a very personal level. “I’ve presided over funerals of people who have passed away far more prematurely than they should have because of preventable health issues,” Wesley says.

Access to health care remains one of the most pressing challenges in Alabama’s rural communities. Many residents travel long distances to see a doctor or specialist, and shortages of primary care providers continue to affect both patient outcomes and quality of life. In honor of National Rural Health Day, celebrated on November 20 this year, the Heersink Office of Access and Engagement spoke with Irfan Asif, M.D., chair of the Department of Family and Community Medicine, associate dean for Primary Care and Rural Health, and co-director of the UAB Comprehensive Healthy Living Research Center, to learn how UAB is expanding care and strengthening the state’s primary care workforce.