to raise awareness of health disparities faced by minority populations of the United States such as American Indians, Alaska Natives, Asian Americans, African Americans, Latino Americans, and Native Hawaiians or other Pacific Islanders. One of the primary functions of the Center is to reduce risk factors for groups affected by health disparities. (2) Six in ten Americans live with at least one chronic disease, like heart disease and stroke, cancer, or diabetes. These and other chronic diseases are the leading causes of death and disability in America. Specifically, chronic diseases are responsible for 7 in 10 deaths each year. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC ), individuals who are at high risk for severe illness from COVID–19 are people with chronic lung disease or moderate to severe asthma, people with serious heart conditions, people who are im­mu­no­com­pro­mised—sometimes because of cancer or HIV/AIDS, people with diabetes, people with liver disease, people with severe obesity, and people with chronic kidney disease undergoing dialysis. (3) According to hospital data from the first month of the COVID–19 epidemic in the United States released by the CDC, roughly 1 in 3 people who required hospitalizations from COVID–19 were African American. While 33 percent of total hospitalized patients are Black, African Americans constitute just 13 percent of the entire American population. Early data released by States and municipalities show that African Americans suffer higher mortality rates from COVID–19. Socioeconomic factors further contribute to racial disparities seen in both prevalence of chronic conditions and exposure to COVID–19. Individuals in low-income communities and people of color are more likely to have many of the chronic health conditions that have been identified as risk factors for complications from COVID–19, yet suffer decreased access to care, compounded by a decreased likelihood of undergoing appropriate treatment. (4) According to the American Diabetes