CDU-CRECD Mentored Postdoctoral Training in the Science of Minority Health and Health Disparities Program

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PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT The overarching goal of the CDU-CRECD Mentored Postdoctoral Training in the Science of Minority Health and Health Disparities Program at Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science (CDU) is to provide minority junior faculty with training and mentoring in health disparities and community-based participatory research, empowering them to achieve the highest levels of scholarship on their respective pathways to successful, independent careers as clinical research scientists. The ultimate goal is to improve the health of racial/ethnic minority groups and reduce disparities. Achievement of this goal will be measured by the number of trainees who successfully pursue long-term careers in clinical-translational, racial and ethnic disparities research, including community-engaged research, and by the quality and quantity of their work. Component I is comprised of two years of an innovative structured mentoring and support for earning a Master of Public Health (MPH) in Urban Health Disparities with added foci on the Science of Minority Health, Community- Based Participatory Research, and Recruitment and Retention of Minority Underserved Populations for Clinical and Epidemiological Research. Component II is comprised of pilot research projects that will enable participants to continue working toward establishing their own independent research program as clinical research scientists leading to applications for individual mentored career development (K) or research grant (R series) awards. The CDU-CRECD Program will be embedded within the existing, extensive clinical research and training infrastructure at CDU and UCLA, and thus will mutually leverage resources with other CDU research education and career development programs so as to achieve maximal cross-program synergies as well as efficiencies from utilizing already-in-place education and training curricula and related resources germane to the CRECD agenda. The CDU-CRECD Program will also carve out a unique niche of training and career development opportunities within the broader CDU science-generating “critical mass” by (1) focusing exclusively on urban health disparities and community-partnered participatory methods in the research and research training agenda and (2) providing to each trainee an intensive and community-immersive mentoring configuration that includes CDU faculty from both the conventional Academic Career track and the Community Faculty track. This intensive mentoring innovation directly emerges from, and formalizes and systematizes into a signature trainee mentoring configuration, a long and fruitful history of community-engaged research, training, and educational curricula at CDU. As an integrated research training and career development package, this approach is designed to bring social determinants of health to the forefront of epidemiological and clinical research.