Nana Entsuah Receives UC End Disparities Pilot Award to Improve Blood Pressure Control Within African American Community at UCI

Nana Entsuah, health sciences assistant clinical professor at the UC Irvine School of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences, received a two-year pilot award from the UCLA-UCI Center for Eliminating Cardiometabolic Disparities in Multi-Ethnic Populations (UC END DISPARITIES).

The $80,000 award will be used to improve blood pressure control within the African American community at UCI through a multi-modal and culturally tailored approach.

UC END DISPARITIES focuses on the inequitable multilevel factors, including structural disadvantage, that accelerates the development and progression of cardiometabolic disease and disproportionately affects low-income and minority groups that comprise Los Angeles County and Orange County (combined population of over 13 million).

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death in the United States. Approximately 697,000 people in the United States died from heart disease in 2020, which equates to one in every five deaths. High blood pressure, also known as hypertension, is a notable risk factor for the development of CVD.

“For African Americans in the United States, the risk of developing CVD is about 30% higher than their Caucasian counterparts,” says Entsuah. “In the United States, hypertension is reported to be more common, and less controlled, in non-Hispanic black adults, 54%, than in non-Hispanic white adults, 46%, showcasing a disparity in disease management.”

A variety of factors contribute to this disparity, including non-optimized pharmacotherapy (such as using unfavorable medications), medication non-adherence (when patients don’t take their medications as prescribed), poor transitions of care, financial disparities, inequitable social determinants of health (e.g., poverty, lack of education, lack of access to healthcare), lifestyle (e.g., diet, inactivity), and a lack of comprehensive patient education.

“There is currently limited culturally adapted, lifestyle modification education material specifically catering to the African American community,” says Entsuah. “Effectively controlling blood pressure within the non-Hispanic African American population is a crucial part in the continued strive towards health equity.”

Entsuah and her research team’s study aims to reduce disparities in hypertension control among African American patients across UCI’s primary care sites through evidence-based medication management, the development of culturally tailored adjunct interventions, and the provision of community resources to meet social needs.

The investigators of the study have partnered with the Institute for Healthcare Advancement, represented by Dr. Marian Ryan, to develop culturally tailored education materials specifically centered on the African American diet while also providing participants of the study with community resources to address social determinants of health needs.

“It is our hope that this targeted approach will not only improve blood pressure outcomes in this population and consequently reduce healthcare costs, but it will also highlight and provide a much-needed pathway to addressing these critical disparities and gaps in care for this vulnerable population,” says Entsuah.

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The research team includes co-lead investigator Connie Abdo, PharmD; co-researchers Michelle Nguyen Phoung, PharmD, and Parmis Khatibi, PharmD, all from UCI Medical Center Internal Medicine; as well as UCI Medical Center physicians Lisa Gibbs, MD, and Maryam Rahimi, MD.