AIM-AHEAD

The National Institutes of Health’s Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning Consortium to Advance Health Equity and Researcher Diversity (AIM-AHEAD) program has established mutually beneficial, coordinated, and trusted partnerships to enhance the participation and representation of researchers and communities currently underrepresented in the development of AI/ML models and to improve the capabilities of this emerging technology, beginning with electronic health records (EHR) and extending to other diverse data to address health disparities and inequities. Under the leadership of Dr. Anil Shanker as the MPI, Meharry governs the Southeast Hub of the NIH AIM-AHEAD Program.

The Southeast Hub governs 11 US States of Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina. It also brings a network of over 93 MSI (HBCU, HSI, PBI, AANAPISI, ANNH & NASNTI); 141 community organizations, 38 industry partners; and 1438 healthcare partners in the hub region that serve underrepresented minority populations.

Our mission is to provide training opportunities and healthcare services for men and women from disadvantaged backgrounds, regardless of race. Meharry is the only HBCU in the PCORI, IGNITE, and eMERGE clinical trials addressing health disparities.

President Biden’s Executive Order Sec 5.2 highlighted the responsible AI development and use through this AIM-AHEAD program and emphasized its activities in underserved communities. AIM-AHEAD program ensures that healthcare technologies serve all populations equitably, particularly those that have been historically disadvantaged.

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• We Listen to community voices to learn from their experiences, conduct webinars and listening sessions, conduct community partner surveys, and engage underrepresented communities to inform the field of the most urgent and emerging research questions and unmet medical
• Capture the AI/ML and health equity needs of underrepresented individuals/ communities/ stakeholders and address the needs by connecting and engaging individuals/ communities/ stakeholders with the AIM-AHEAD consortium.
• Provide a written summary of workshops and listening sessions to Cores within 90 days of event completion.
• Support cross-hub and core interactions with the Data Science Training Core, Data Research Core, and Infrastructure Core to promote capacity building and increase the diversity of AI/ML data and researchers in the Southeast region.
• Gather ideas and direction for the activities of the AIM-AHEAD Consortium in the Southeast Hub through a fair, equitable, and transparent process.
• Develop, coordinate, and conduct hub-specific pilot projects.
• Coordinate research and leadership program, Program for artificial intelligence readiness (PAIR), Data and Infrastructure Capacity Building (DICB), Hub-specific pilot projects, and consortium development projects.
• Develop mechanisms to evaluate hub/program effectiveness, including Program Evaluation Plans to define and evaluate success metrics.

Our Goals and Objectives

• Recruit, establish, and coordinate a consortium of institutions and organizations with a core mission to serve under-represented or underserved groups impacted by health disparities to participate in the initiative.
• Monitor deliverables of the ongoing hub projects and sub-awards to other consortium institutions and organizations to support capacity building, pilot studies, and collaborative projects that advance the A-CC’s overall goals and leverage the consortium’s strengths and synergies.
• Enhance AI/ML capacity and collaboration in Southeast Hub due to data science training to the community and AI/ML workshops and other activities organized by the Hub.
• Work in collaboration with the central hub at UNT Health Sciences Center, and the other three Cores, to meet milestones on schedule and budget; facilitate trusted partnerships within the A-CC and with external stakeholders; and maintain an agile approach to seize opportunities as needed quickly.