The Eastern Caribbean Health Outcomes Research Network, or ECHORN, is based on one mission: they want to study ways to keep Caribbean residents from getting sick as opposed to treating them once they do.
"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," said Dr. Maxine Nunez, University of the Virgin Islands nursing professor. Nunez leads ECHORN-USVI on UVI’s campus.
ECHORN hosted its second annual symposium on Wednesday morning at the Marriott’s Frenchman’s Reef Hotel on St. Thomas. The symposium, which started at 8 a.m. and ran past 2 p.m., was filled with medical professionals, professors and researchers from various Eastern Caribbean nations, islands and territories.
The University of the Virgin Islands and Yale University partnered to host the symposium. ECHORN is a community-based study dedicated to expanding clinical research on chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes affecting racial and ethnic minority populations across the Eastern Caribbean. The symposium provides an opportunity for career development, cross-island networking and collaboration within the organization, according to a UVI press release.
"You’re chasing these issues now so the future generations won’t have to," said Senate President Shawn-Michael Malone while addressing the audience Wednesday.
Yale School of Medicine professor Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, who was awarded a multi-million dollar federal grant in 2011, created ECHORN, which is coordinated out of New Haven, Conn. The $5.3 million grant is scheduled to be spread over five years and was supplied by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities.
The organization’s primary aims are three-fold: to research prevalence of known and potential risk factors for diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer; to strengthen research capacity in the region through a series of research and leadership training activities; and to disseminate research results in ways that make the information meaningful to policymakers and health professionals.
Health research professionals from across the Caribbean basin and the United States attended the symposium to share research, give progress reports, increase infrastructure and create networking opportunities.
Gov. John deJongh Jr. welcomed the group and lauded its lofty goals.
"Its important to change the paradigm so we can understand these diseases better," he said. “The collaborative spirit of the health initiative is in the room.”
The data collection at ECHORN is two-pronged because officials ask residents to complete a questionnaire regarding health, habits, history and demographic information while drawing residents’ blood to be tested by a lab for free, Nunez said. The result of the blood sample is then given to the participants on the recommendation it’s shown to their physicians.
Participants must be at least 40 years old and residents of the Virgin Islands for 10 years with no plans to move for five years, Nunez said. Participants are randomly selected. All participants are voluntary.
Amy Schweizer, UVI junior faculty member, said ECHORN-USVI opened two community centers in the last year while performing health studies for local residents. Schweizer said most residents were polite and willing to do the survey although some were skeptical and suspicious of giving blood. She assured survey participants their results are kept confidential.
At the symposium members from each participating university, which also included University of Puerto Rico and University of the West Indies-Barbados, shared success stories as well as frustrating anecdotes. Each presentation featured slides and statistics documenting the first year of ECHORN research and testing. The different ECHORN representatives gave one-year progress reports emphasizing survey results, sampling plans, visibility in the community, qualitative interviews and biobanking.
Biobanking is storing biological samples of blood in a type of biorepository for use in future research. Nunez said it’s the most exciting part of the program.
"Science evolves. This process allows us to have biological information that will be useful," Nunez said. "When the time is right we’ll be able to take advantage and unleash the information hidden in our blood. The secret will be explained to us."
DeJongh argued clinical research is part of the solution to aid minority populations in the region threatened by an epidemic of noncommunicable chronic diseases. He said he hopes ECHORN research findings will have serious implications for health policy in the region and for health inequities research and policy in the mainland United States.
Last year’s symposium was held in Miami, said Carol Oladele, ECHORN coordinating center member and associate research scientist at the Yale School of Medicine. Oladele said the symposiums are important teaching tools on "how to grow infrastructure and do systemic reviews of your program."
This year the symposium featured an interactive learning workshop, designed for health research professionals such as junior faculty, research fellows, research assistants, project managers, postdoctoral fellows and graduate students who work with populations in or from the Caribbean.
