High blood pressure is common in our communities and counted almost nowhere. This lab measures it and then does something about it.
This lab exists so that heart disease in our communities stops being invisible, and so that the people carrying it are found before it costs them their health.
In national health data, families from the Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan, South Asia and East Africa are recorded as White. That single choice hides how much high blood pressure these households actually carry, and a condition nobody has counted is a condition nobody funds, treats or plans for. No cardiovascular data exists for these communities anywhere in the Central Valley. This lab sets out to produce the first of it, and to pair every reading it takes with support in the language spoken at home, so that measuring somebody is the beginning of their care rather than the end of it.
It is the newest of our labs, established in 2026 alongside the Center, and it is building its team now.
The investigators, clinicians and institutions we do this work with.
This lab is building its academic partnerships. If you are an investigator or clinician who wants to work with the communities this lab serves, we would like to hear from you.
The coalition this lab works withHEAL CoalitionOur community coalition connecting resident voices, care partners and practical prevention support.See the coalition →Measuring how common high blood pressure is in our communities, how many people know they have it, how many are treated, and how many are actually controlled. These four numbers do not exist for the Central Valley today.
Putting validated blood pressure monitors into households and teaching their use in the languages families already speak, so that a reading is something a person can take on a Tuesday evening rather than only in a clinic.
Training people from these households to deliver the coaching and the follow-up, adapting a model already proven with refugee families elsewhere in California to the communities we serve here.
California will soon require these communities to be reported separately in health data. Whoever holds the first Central Valley numbers becomes the reference for them. This lab works to make sure those numbers describe our families accurately.
If cardiovascular health, chronic disease or access to care is something you fund, we would be glad to show you what this lab is building and who it reaches.
We welcome cardiologists, public health researchers and health plans who want to reach households that current programmes are not reaching.
This is our newest lab, so there is real ground-floor work to take on. No prior research experience is required.
Apply to join this lab