Officials at N.C. Central University this week announced that it was one of the state’s historically black colleges and universities award a $1 million grant for COVID-19 research.

NCCU officials say the funding will establish a renew research hub, the Advanced Center for COVID-19 Related Disparities (ACCORD). 

The program comprises a cadre of 25 campus researchers who will study the public health and economic impact of coronavirus in the state’s underserved communities, according to a press release.

The pandemic in Durham County mirrors what is happening across the country: COVID-19 has disproportionately affected the state’s communities of color, from a health perspective and economically. African Americans account for 38 percent of the state’s COVID-19 deaths, but only 21 percent of the population. 

More concerning: Blacks and Hispanics account for about 89 percent of the confirmed 2,473 COVID-19 cases in Durham County, according to the county’s department of public health.

Four other HBCUs were awarded research funding; Elizabeth City State University, Fayetteville State University, N.C. A&T State University, and Winston-Salem State University, along with UNC Pembroke, whose origins are linked to the Lumbee tribe in Robeson County.

At the heart of NCCU’s initiative will be nasal swab testing for the virus in Anson, Cabarrus, Durham, Granville, Halifax, Rowan, and Vance counties.

I addition to testing and research, ACCORD plans to “conduct outreach with local community groups and organizations to provide culturally sensitive and effective health messaging,” according to a press statement from the school. 

The grant comes via a partnership between the UNC Board of Governors’ committee that focuses on serving HBCUs and N.C. Policy Collaboratory at UNC-Chapel Hill. 

The creation of ACCORD is in concert with BBRI’s ongoing research mission of focusing on health issues that disproportionately impact communities of color and underserved populations, Ayana Hernandez, a university spokeswoman stated in the release.

NCCU Chancellor Dr. Johnson O. Akinleye said that the funding “will expand the university’s ability to undergo critical research, testing, and monitoring in some of the state’s most impoverished communities.” 

“This vital project adds to work underway at the research center aptly named for Julius L. Chambers, who formerly served as the school’s chancellor, along with being “an attorney and trailblazer who fought to level inequities in our communities,” Akinleye added.

The school’s BBRI director Deepak Kumar said in the release the funding “offers an opportunity to transform health care and eradicate inequities.”

The pandemic in Durham County mirrors what is happening across the country: COVID-19 has disproportionately affected the state’s communities of color, from a health perspective and economically.

Henry McKoy, an economist, and director of entrepreneurship at N.C. Central previously told the INDY that race-based health and economic disparities laid bare by COVID-19 could accelerate gentrification trends that Durham was experiencing before the pandemic crisis.    

“Rent payments will be missed and folks will be evicted,” McKoy said. “Mortgage payments will be missed and homes will be lost. Black folks have a high rate of sole-proprietorship as their form of business and entrepreneurship, and their incomes have dried up completely.

“The small black businesses that had employees will also suffer and may close down,” McKoy continued. “This will have a broader impact on the black community’s economic ecosystem, and that may mean kids can’t get the resources to go to college or start their own businesses.”

When the state began reopening last month, NCCU Public Health Professor LaVerne Reid warned it could trigger an immediate spike in COVID-19 cases. 

She was particularly concerned about an uptick in the deaths of men of color, many of whom work in the labor market and are on the front lines of retail services that will ramp up with reopening. On Friday, Reid told the INDY her concerns about the COVID-19’s spread in Black communities are amplified with mass protests over the murder of George Floyd, particularly in multi-generational households.

Contact staff writer Thomasi McDonald at [email protected].

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