African American Haplotype Map Engagement and Follow-up

This is a proposal for undertaking community engagement, donor collection, and follow-up in four predominantly African American towns in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area. The precise four towns are not yet specified as there is interest in this project among a larger number of appropriate municipalities. A process of community engagement will include individual interviews, working groups, and focus groups, as community members are asked to assist in identifying risks and benefits, writing culturally appropriate consent forms, designing participant recruitment protocols, setting up community advisory boards, and other modifications to the project that they may suggest. 45 parent-child trios (the parents of which have at least three out of four grandparents who were born in Oklahoma and identified themselves as African Americans) will be elicited in the second phase for blood donation. Those samples will be sent to Coriell for the Haplotype Map collection. The third phase will investigate the ways in which social identities intersect with genetic findings and concepts, using community involvement in the Haplotype Map Project as an opportunity to explore the questions that arise from that intersection.