$50,000 UAMS gift supports study of disease-prone groups

FAYETTEVILLE — A $50,000 gift from a Maryland family will help University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences researchers study ways to improve the health of groups prone to higher rates of disease.

The Chatrathi Endowment for Innovations in Community Health will support the Office of Community Health and Research at the UAMS Northwest Regional Campus.

Sridhar Chatrathi earned degrees from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville and UAMS, and the gift is also from his wife, Prema, and their three children, Harish, Meena and Samira.

Researchers based in Fayetteville have conducted outreach to prevent chronic diseases such as diabetes in the Marshallese community. An estimated 20 percent to 50 percent of Marshallese have Type 2 diabetes, formerly known as adult-onset diabetes, compared to 8.3 percent of the total U.S. population, according to research pub- lished in the academic journal Contemporary Clinical Trials Communications.

Sridhar Chatrathi is a doctor and co-director of a cardiac laboratory in Takoma Park, Md., and Prema Chatrathi is a clinical pharmacist.

“I grew up in Fayetteville, and although it’s changed a lot since I was here, I wanted to express my deepest sense of gratitude to this community and the state of Arkansas as well as UAMS for my education,” Sridhar Chatrathi said in a statement released by UAMS.