UAB Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery Assistant Professor Rongbing Xie, Dr.P.H., MPH, was recently awarded a $50,000 grant from Forge AHEAD Center for her research study, "Addressing Cardiometabolic Disease in People Living with HIV: Developing Strategies to Improve Diet and Exercise by Assessing Multi-level Social Determinants of Health."

Xie will present her study at the Health Equity Action Network's annual meeting in September and the Forge AHEAD Center's annual meeting in October.

As an outcomes researcher and statistician, Xie's areas of research interest include optimizing healthcare delivery systems, evaluating the effectiveness of surgical interventions, and econometrics.

Her research seeks to distill translatable findings that can be directly applied to clinical care and public health policy.

"I am so grateful for the opportunity, made possible by Forge AHEAD Center, to research actionable strategies to help patients in their daily lives and routines," says Xie.

About the Forge AHEAD Center

As a member of the Health Equity Action Network, Forge AHEAD Center seeks to promote health equity and reduce the burden of cardiometabolic diseases among Black Americans and low-income populations in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Partner institutions of the Center include UAB, Tuskegee University, the University of Mississippi Medical Center, and Pennington Biomedical Research Center.