42 U.S.C. § 285t — Purpose of Institute

(a) In general: The general purpose of the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities is to conduct and support research, training, information dissemination, and other programs about minority health conditions and other groups that experience health disparities. (b) Priorities: When spending money appropriated for this part of the law, the Director must prioritize research on minority health disparities. (c) Minority health disparities research: (1) "Minority health disparities research" means basic, clinical, and behavioral research on "minority health conditions" (defined next), including research to prevent, diagnose, and treat those conditions. (2) For people who belong to minority groups, "minority health conditions" means any disease, disorder, or condition — including mental health and substance abuse conditions — that is (A) unique to, more serious in, or more common in those people; (B) one where the medical risks or the right medical treatment may differ for those people, or it's unknown whether they differ; or (C) one where too little research has included those people as subjects, or too little data exists about them. (3) "Minority group" means the same thing as "racial and ethnic minority group" in section 300u–6. (4) "Minority" and "minorities" mean people from a minority group. (d) Health disparity populations: (1) A population counts as a "health disparity population" if the Director — after consulting the Director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality — decides there's a big difference between that population's rates of disease, illness, death, or survival, and the rates for the general population. (2) The Director must give priority to deciding whether minority groups qualify this way. (3) "Health disparities research" means basic, clinical, and behavioral research on health disparity populations — including individuals and communities within them — that studies these disparities, including their causes and ways to prevent, diagnose, and treat them. (e) Coordination of activities: The Director must act as the lead federal official coordinating all minority health disparities research and other health disparities research done or funded by the National Institutes of Health. The Director must (1) represent NIH's health disparities research program — including the minority health disparities part — at all relevant Executive Branch task forces, committees, and planning meetings, and (2) stay in communication with all relevant Public Health Service agencies, including the Indian Health Service, and other federal departments, to make sure new research findings get shared quickly among agencies and passed on to affected communities and health care providers. (f) Collaborative comprehensive plan and budget: (1) The Director of NIH, the Institute's Director, and the directors of NIH's other agencies, working together and consulting the Institute's advisory council, must (A) create a comprehensive plan and budget for all of NIH's minority health disparities research and other health disparities research — the first one due within 12 months of November 22, 2000; (B) make sure that plan and budget set priorities among the research activities the agencies are allowed to do; (C) make sure the plan and budget set goals, explain how to reach them, and set target dates; (D) make sure that, for money appropriated to the Institute itself, the plan and budget prioritize minority health disparities research; (E) make sure all money appropriated for these activities gets spent according to the plan and budget; (F) review the plan and budget at least once a year and update them as needed; (G) make sure the plan and budget serve as broad, binding policy statements — without taking away agency heads' responsibility to approve specific programs or projects, or handle day-to-day administration, consistent with the plan and budget; and (H) promote coordination and teamwork among the agencies doing this research. (2) Regarding health disparities research at NIH's agencies, the Director must make sure the plan and budget cover (A) both basic and applied research, including research and development on products; (B) research the agencies do themselves; (C) research the agencies fund; (D) proposals that come from agency solicitations, and proposals that don't; and (E) behavioral and social-science research, which may include research on culture and language, at each agency. (3) The plan and budget must include a separate section just for minority health disparities research. (g) Participation in clinical research: The Director must work with the Director of NIH and the directors of NIH's agencies to carry out the parts of section 289a–2 that apply to minority groups. (h) Research endowments: (1) The Director may run a program that funds minority health disparities research and other health disparities research by giving research endowments (A) to current or former centers of excellence under section 293, and (B) to current or former centers of excellence under section 285t–1. (2) The Director may give an institution such an endowment only if (A) the institution's own endowment is worth no more than half the national median endowment for institutions doing similar biomedical research or health-professional training, and (B) the institution's application for the endowment has been recommended by technical and scientific peer review and approved by the advisory council described in subsection (j). (i) Certain activities: In carrying out subsection (a), the Director must (1) help the Director of NIH carry out section 283k(c)(2) and commit resources for construction at Institutions of Emerging Excellence under that section; (2) set up projects that promote cooperation on health disparities research among federal agencies, state, local, and tribal public health agencies, and private groups; and (3) may use information from earlier health initiatives focused on minorities and other health disparity populations. (j) Advisory council: (1) The Secretary must set up an advisory council, following section 284a, to advise, assist, consult with, and make recommendations to the Director on the activities described in subsection (a), and to perform the other functions section 284a assigns to advisory councils — including recommending how to allocate the budget under subsection (f), and reviewing the reports required under subsection (k) before they're submitted. (2) A majority of the council's members must have real expertise in minority and other health disparity issues; the council must include representatives of communities affected by these disparities; and it must include a mix of health professionals. It must also include a representative from the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research created under section 283c. (k) Intra-National Institutes of Health coordination: As the lead federal official coordinating all of NIH's research and activities on minority health and health disparities, the Director must plan, coordinate, review, and evaluate the research and other activities of the national research institutes and national centers. The Director may build partnerships between these institutes and centers, and may encourage them to fund joint research projects that support NIH's goals on minority health and health disparities.