7. Program Abstract The University of Minnesota's Building Interdisciplinary Careers in Women's Health (BIRCWH) Program's overarching goal is to improve the health of all women across the lifespan and, by extension, to improve the health of their families and communities in Minnesota, the nation, and the world. The BIRCWH is a comprehensive program that ensures our scholars (assistant professors) become premier interdisciplinary women's health researchers. Our short-term objective is to facilitate the research careers of our scholars by expanding their research skills, experience in team science, research networks and leadership abilities, and increasing their scholarly productivity. This objective will be accomplished through the following components: 1) Competency-based training in the design, conduct, and dissemination of high-quality women's health and sex differences research with both required and individualized components, including curricular innovations in research ethics, rigor and reproducibility, bioinformatics and advance methodology, and scientific leadership; 2) A robust interdisciplinary mentoring program that has an academically diverse pool of women's health research mentors, including BIRCWH alumni, who can support all aspects of the Scholars' research career development; 3) Formation of new alliances with other BIRCWH Programs to enhance opportunities for cross- institutional networking and research collaborations to will promote the national recognition of our Scholars; and 4) Strong program oversight and evaluation that is tailored to the program competencies and benchmarks. Our long-term objectives are to: 1) Increase the number of interdisciplinary research leaders who advance scientific knowledge in women's health and wellness across the lifespan and in sex/gender differences in health and disease; 2) Foster new cross-disciplinary collaborations within the University and broader community to increase the impact of women's health research; 3) Transform the academic environment by increasing the visibility of interdisciplinary women's health and sex/gender determinants research; and 4) Effect the timely translation of women's health research findings to clinical practice, public health and policy. For this cycle, we are have chosen four major interdisciplinary research focus areas. They are: a) Cancers occurring in primarily in females or have sex-specific aspects to treatment; b) Behavior and health eating/obesity and substance use disorders; c) Mature women's health with an emphasis on cardiovascular disease and osteoporosis; and c) Health disparities community-engaged research to address disparities in women and girls. Rationale and design of the program: We will achieve the program's goal by increasing the number of well-trained, interdisciplinary researchers who focus on women's health and the effects of biological sex and gender roles on health and disease. We fund three women's health or sex differences researchers who are assistant professors in year one through there faculty appointment for three years.
The primary objective of the University of Minnesota's Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women's Health Program is to improve the health of all women across the lifespan and, by extension, to improve the health of their families and communities in Minnesota, the nation, and the world. We will accomplish this by training our assistant professors to become experts and national leaders in women's health and sex differences research. The specifics of how illnesses manifest in women and how women respond to treatments have been understudied and we are training women's health researcher in order to address this disparity.
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