NIH Funds AI Diversity Coordinating Center
The National Institutes of Health Office of Data Science Strategy has awarded $50 million to the University of North Texas Health Science Center to lead the coordinating center for the Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning Consortium to Advance Health Equity and Researcher Diversity, or AIM-AHEAD, program.
The University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort Worth will lead the multi-institutional coordinating center, which brings together experts in community engagement, artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML), health equity research, data science training, and data infrastructure.
AIM-AHEAD was created to close the gaps in the AI/ML field, which NIH says currently lacks diversity in its researchers and in data, including electronic health records (EHRs). “These gaps pose a risk of creating and continuing harmful biases in how AI/ML is used, how algorithms are developed and trained, and how findings are interpreted,” according to NIH. “Critically, these gaps can lead to continued health disparities and inequities for underrepresented communities.”
The AIM-AHEAD Coordinating Center’s initial charge will be to build a consortium of partners and engage with stakeholders. The two-year planning, assessment and capacity building award will identify priority research aims in health equity and AI/ML, as well as the training and infrastructure needed to support these.
Heading up the leadership core group is Jamboor K. Vishwanatha, Ph.D., a professor at the University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort Worth, a principal investigator in the National Research Mentoring Network, and director of the Texas Center for Health Disparities.
In the data and research core, Portland-based OCHIN and multi-disciplinary partners will use EHRs, image data, social determinants of health data, and more to develop and enhance AI/ML algorithms and apply AI/ML approaches in health equity research. This work seeks to illuminate underlying issues in health systems that need to be addressed to improve health for diverse communities.
An infrastructure core team will enable a coordinated data and computing infrastructure that enhances the interoperability of large-scale data resources with data that are maintained, governed, and prepared by individual institutions to preserve privacy and autonomy.
