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 three 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.
George W. Comstock Center for Public
Health Research and Prevention
Hagerstown, MD
Welch Center faculty members are active in conducting large population studies in Hagerstown, Maryland. In 2008, Dr. Josef Coresh, assumed responsibility as director of the Comstock Center overseeing research and training in the two affiliated units. Sandra Clipp, MPH, directs the Health Monitoring Unit (HMU) on Pennsylvania Avenue which includes the CLUE studies and leads training and public health activities. Dr. Kathy Helzlsouer, a former Welch Center faculty member, was the principal investigator of CLUE II. Kala Visvanathan and Linda Kao co-direct CLUE focusing on genetics and cancer respectively. Pat Crowley is the operations director of the Surveillance & Disease Prevention Unit (S&DP) on the square in downtown Hagerstown which houses the ARIC study (lead by Dr. Coresh and includes county-wide heart disease surveillance), CHS (initiated by Linda Fried while at the Welch Center and currently lead by Paolo Chaves), GEM (Dr. Michelle Carlson) and SHHS (Dr. Naresh Punjabi). Health Monitoring Unit (5 Public Square, Hagerstown, MD 21740) has expertise and capacity in the conduct of large surveys and follow-up by mail and telephone as well as a close relationship to the county health department. The unit has longstanding expertise in cancer research and monitors all cancer cases in the county.
Surveillance and Disease Prevention Unit (1302 Pennsylvania Avenue, Hagerstown, MD 21742) has expertise and capacity to carry out large epidemiologic studies with detailed examinations and physiologic studies as well as large medical records based research. The unit has longstanding expertise in cardiovascular disease, aging, cognitive function and genetics.
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