American Indian Diabetes Prevention Center: Challenges of a Health Equity Quest

American Indians are classified by the federal government as a "health disparities population" with significant excess morbidity and mortality caused by diabetes and its many complications. The National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities of the National Institutes of Health has created a national program titled "Centers of Excellence" whose primary goal is the elimination of health disparities. This article describes the American Indian Diabetes Prevention Center at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, College of Public Health, in terms of its intellectual foundations rooted in a biocultural analytic model and operationalized by an interdisciplinary functioning staff. Challenges are described in terms of the monumental task of impacting health disparity conditions and in the exigencies of research collaborations with American Indian Nations located in rural areas remote to the University's health sciences urban-based hub.