Investigator Development Core

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INVESTIGATOR DEVELOPMENT CORE ABSTRACT Underrepresentation of minority scholars has been a concern in the science and NIH funded workforce. Doctoral-level minority scientists still make up less than 5% of the total workforce, and less than 2% of NIH principal investigators were African Americans, and additional 3.5% were Hispanic in 2010. Our overall goal is to explore ways to build a cadre of diverse scholars in the multi-disciplinary field of health disparities research. The specific aims of proposed Investigator Development Core are to: 1) provide multidisciplinary mentored training on Structural Violence and health disparities research to a diverse group of early stage scholars; 2) help early stage scholars develop and implement pilot projects on structural inequality and its health effects; 3) facilitate scholarly activities, such as publications and grant applications; 4) employ ongoing evaluation and feedback processes to better understand paths to creating collaborative multidisciplinary mentoring and resource-sharing environment. Our Investigator Development Core will use the social cognitive career theory (SCCT) to inform our investigator training and career development activities. SCCT focuses on three areas: 1) mastery experience: successful completion of tasks to build personal capacity; 2) social modeling: peer- mentoring and group learning to gain solidarity and confidence; and 3) verbal and social persuasion: continuous feedback and positive mentoring to enhance self-efficacy. Our goal is to prepare a diverse group of early stage scholars, including post-doctoral fellows and junior faculty, for leadership roles in health disparities research. To achieve this goal, we will implement the following activities in collaboration with the other two Cores of the Center: 1) solicit and award three pilot research projects concerning structural violence and health inequality per year, over the five-year study period; 2) match awardees of pilot projects with content mentor(s) and meet bi-monthly, 3) host grant writing workshops and writing retreats once a year for five years; 4) provide ongoing research support and resources; and 5) implement mixed method evaluation and feedback to understand needs, strengths, limitations, and achievements of promoting diverse, multidisciplinary scholarship.