• Center on Health Equity & Access
  • Clinical
  • Health Care Cost
  • Health Care Delivery
  • Insurance
  • Policy
  • Technology
  • Value-Based Care

New Collaborative to Address Chronic Disease Disparities in Southeast US

Podcast

On this episode of Managed Care Cast, Consuelo Wilkins, MD, MSCI, discusses efforts to improve racial and ethnic disparities in US chronic disease rates.

In January 2022, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Meharry Medical College, and the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine announced the receipt of a $12.4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to develop the Southeast Collaborative for Innovative and Equitable Solutions to Chronic Disease Disparities.

The center’s work aims to reduce disparities seen in the southeast United States, with particular focus on cardiovascular disease, obesity, diabetes, and other related conditions among African Americans and Latino populations.

Currently, over 20% of this region lives in poverty, while racial and ethnic minorities comprise nearly 40% of the population. Southern states also tend to be the least healthy in the nation and account for the majority of Medicaid expansion holdouts under the Affordable Care Act.

To learn more about geographic disparities in chronic disease rates, The American Journal of Managed Care® (AJMC®) sat down with Consuelo Wilkins, MD, MSCI, professor of medicine, senior vice president and senior associate dean for health equity and inclusive excellence at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee.

On this episode of Managed Care Cast, Wilkins discusses factors that impede progress on chronic disease prevention and outlines the next steps for the Southeast Collaborative.

This episode of Managed Care Cast is part of the new AJMC® Podcast Prevention Series, bringing you the latest news on prevention advancements in disease.

Listen above or through one of these podcast services:

iTunes
TuneIn
Stitcher
Spotify

Related Videos
Katrina Ortblad, ScD, MPH, Fred Hutch Cancer Center
Andrew Kuykendall, MD, Moffitt Cancer Center
Anna Mueller, MD, Mount Sinai
Marc Humbert, MD, PhD
Susan Cantrell, CEO of AMCP
John Ostrominski, MD
John Buse, MD, PhD
Marc P. Bonaca, MD, MPH
Christian T. Ruff, MD, MPH
Related Content
© 2025 MJH Life Sciences
AJMC®
All rights reserved.