Minority Pre-doctoral Education to Reduce Disparities

描述(由申请者提供)：NCI的癌症研究计划和优先事项将培训新的癌症科学家确定为其“最重要的挑战之一”，并强调需要增加种族和少数民族对癌症研究事业的参与。增加少数群体参与研究事业也是公共卫生的一个主要优先事项，公共卫生是一个跨学科领域，其对癌症预防和控制的贡献是巨大的，而且在很大程度上是独一无二的。由于更多样化的公共卫生工作队伍可以更好地了解和服务于不同社区的需求，因此需要训练有素的少数族裔公共卫生研究人员，以确保在消除健康和癌症差距方面取得改善。我们提出了一个为期两年的博士前教育计划，为非裔美国人的公共卫生研究生做好准备，帮助他们通过癌症预防和控制研究消除癌症差异。该计划由五个主要要素组成。对于学生：(1)了解和消除癌症差异的特别课程；(2)在癌症预防和控制研究和政策方面的指导性经验学习；(3)指导独立研究；以及(4)与来自国家研究人员库中的非裔美国人学者建立专业网络，他们的工作涉及癌症和/或差异。对于教师：(5)跨文化指导方面的技能培养。为了促进其他机构今后对该计划的采用，这些计划组成部分将被设计用于传播，提案将确定具体的产品和分发机制。圣路易斯大学公共卫生学院和研究生院坚定地致力于这一计划，并承诺为参与计划的学生提供85%的学费奖学金。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): NCI's Plans and Priorities for Cancer Research identifies training of new cancer scientists as one of its "most important challenges," and emphasizes the need for increased involvement of racial and ethnic minorities in cancer research careers. Increasing minority participation in research careers has also been a major priority in public health, an interdisciplinary field whose contributions to cancer prevention and control have been significant, and largely unique. Because a more diverse public health work force can better understand and serve the needs of diverse communities, well-trained minority public health researchers are needed to ensure improvements are made in eliminating health and cancer disparities. We propose a two-year pre-doctoral education program to prepare African American graduate students in public health to help eliminate cancer disparities through cancer prevention and control research. The program consists of five main elements. For students: (1) special coursework in understanding and eliminating cancer disparities; (2) mentored experiential learning in cancer prevention and control research and policy; (3) mentored independent research; and, (4) professional network-building with an interdisciplinary group of African American scholars from a national pool of researchers whose work addresses cancer and/or disparities. For faculty: (5) skill building in cross-cultural mentoring. To enhance future adoption of the program by other institutions, these program components will be designed for dissemination and the proposal identifies specific products and mechanisms for distribution. The School of Public Health and Graduate School at Saint Louis University are strongly committed to this program, and have pledged 85% tuition scholarships for students involved.