Strengthening Child Health Research Capacity in Resource Constrained Settings: Researcher Resilience Training (RRT)

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PROJECT ABSTRACT This competing renewal, “Strengthening Child Health Research Capacity in Resource Constrained Settings” (referred to as Researcher Resilience Training, RRT) aims to advance and test state-of-the-art research methods training and “hands-on” research experience for advanced doctoral students and early career investigators, specifically those of African descent or focused on populations associated with the African continent, committed to addressing the serious threats to child behavioral health (CBH), as well as prevention and care disparities in poverty-impacted contexts. RRT develops and supports a pipeline of new CBH investigators who are prepared to advance scientific knowledge about system and community-level structural interventions that can address the disproportionate health burdens experienced by poverty-impacted youth of African descent via enhancing protective family, neighborhood, system supports; reducing disparities; and advancing racial and health equity. The RRT is guided by 4 Specific Aims: Aim 1. Recruit 5 cohorts of advanced doctoral students and early career investigators, committed to conducting CBH prevention, intervention, services, implementation, and scale-up research within resource-constrained settings (Fellows; n=45 across 5 years); Aim 2. Deliver a summer research training program aimed at equipping Fellows with skills to address the challenges in resource-poor settings through didactic instruction, mentoring, “hands-on” immersion in child- and family-focused studies, individualized consultation, goal setting, monitoring, and ongoing support in resources over time; Aim 3. Advance academic/community/safety net system research partnerships on CBH and child well-being; and Aim 4. Examine the short-term and longitudinal impact of RRT (across 10 cohorts; n=90 RRT Fellows). Fellows participate in a 2-week, face-to-face training program at Washington University in St. Louis. Fellows then spend 4 to 6 weeks embedded across a set of existing CBH-focused research studies, exclusively led by investigators of color. Scientists with advanced methods expertise provide intensive consultation and mentoring to Fellows and are drawn from the collaborating Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity and Equity (CRE2) in addition to WUSTL faculty. A rigorous mixed-methods evaluation tracks individual Fellow progress, as well as the impact of the RRT on overall CBH research partnerships.