The Center makes its home on the second floor of the 2024 East Monument Street building on the East Baltimore campus of the Johns Hopkins University. Core faculty and staff maintain their offices here. The Center's suite offers a library, computer facilities, three conference rooms, and carrels with computers and network access for selected trainees. The largest conference room (the Whelton Room), used for meetings, seminars, and training activites, is named after the Center's founding director, Dr. Paul Whelton, whose portrait hangs on the wall. The Center also maintains two satellite facilities for patient-oriented clinical research:
Located in the Woodlawn neighborhood of Baltimore is the Center's Pro-Health Clinical Research Unit. The approximately 10,000 sq. ft. facility is the site for community-based prevention trials, and is directed by Dr. Larry Appel. The facility offers clinical examination rooms and a data bank for biologic specimens. It is an excellent resource for faculty and trainees interested in cardiovascular and renal disease prevention studies, particularly clinical trials. Ongoing NIH-supported trials underway at Pro-Health include: the Diet and Study of Hypertension II (DASH II); PREMIER (a randomized trial of lifestyle interventions to lower blood pressure); the Diabetes Prevention Project (DPP); the African-American Study of
Hypertension and Kidney Diseases (AASK); and the Look Ahead Study. Drs. Brancati and
Clark also conduct research here.
Located in the Canton section of East Baltimore is the headquarters of several ongoing projects conducted in clinical settings throughout Baltimore, Maryland, and the United States. Dr. Lisa Cooper heads two studies at this facility, the Blacks Receiving Interventions for Depression and Gaining Empowerment (BRIDGE) Study, and the Patient-Physician Partnership to Improve HBP Adherence Study. Dr. Ebony Boulware leads research in the Talking About Living Kidney Donation (TALK) Study and the PREPARED Study, both concerned with education about chronic renal disease. Here also, Dr. Susan Furth heads the
CKID Study of kidney disease in children. The most recent projects to take up residence at
Tindeco ar Dr. Joseph Finkelstein's two studies using the internet-based Home Automated
Telemanagement (HAT) system to deliver multi-disciplinary medical care to African American
patients with Hypertension (HTN-HAT) and to patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary
Disease (COPD-HAT). These treatment trials are generating information about the application
of clinical and public health improvement strategies at the community level. Completed projects that were housed at the Tindeco facility include Project Sugar and the TAAG Study. Project Sugar, directed by Drs. Fred Brancati and Tiffany Gary with Marian Batts-Turner, RN, was a randomized controlled trial of primary care based interventions aimed at improving the metabolic control of African Americans with non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus. Dr. Deborah Young headed the Trial of Activity in Adolescent Girls, or TAAG Study, a cross-sectional trial of an environmental-leval intervention in amount of physical activity in middle-school girls.
Welch Center faculty have also been active in conducting large population studies in Hagerstown, Maryland. The Downtown Hagerstown facility is home to the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study, headed by Dr. Josef Coresh, and its ancillary grants.
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