The need for a diverse workforce in addressing minority health and health disparities requires a national effort to address. Diversity among the workforce can come from cultural and racial background, socioeconomic status and the unique nature of the university size, scope of research and investigator profile. While not detracting from the impact of the research done at the traditional research powerhouses across the US, smaller schools and those serving a predominantly underrepresented population play a uniquely valuable role in training a diverse workforce. Ponce Health Sciences University is fairly small university in southern Puerto Rico offering MD, MS, PhD, and DrPH in medicine, biomedical sciences, psychology and public health to a predominantly hispanic population of students. Our faculty are immersed in the local and national Puerto Rican communities and have the cultural competence, language skills and trust to address health disparities broadly and also specifically among Puerto Ricans and other Hispanics. We propose an investigator development core to provide STrategic Academic Research Training (START) for our junior faculty Scholars to enhance the diversity they bring to the scientific workforce. The START core is based on the hypothesis that if we provide strategic training and team mentoring to individual Scholars, they will more quickly achieve independent funding and career advancement.
Three aims are proposed to (1) implement targeted training in areas of need identified in our faculty in the School of Medicine, School of Brain and Behavioral Sciences, and Public Health Program; (2) match scholars with a team of mentors to cover scientific and career expertise needs; and (3) provide for rigorous reviews and selection of projects for pilot funding to develop data and publications to support successful acquisition of independent, extramural research funding in minority health and health disparities. The scope and needs among our faculty that START will address are well defined by PHSU prior experiences with pilot funding and junior investigator development (thus based on practical experience and targeted to our faculty). START goals are to develop our Scholars into funded (grants), productive researchers (publications, scientists trained) working in health disparities and to support their academic career development (promotion) and to do so while fostering the unique backgrounds and approaches among diverse scientists with career trajectories that are distinct from the traditional model common at elite research universities. This unique training, cultural competence and diverse community trust are all essential components to deriving creative and impactful research solutions to address persistent disparities in minority health and healthcare outcomes.
Minority health and disparities in healthcare require creative solutions to show progress. Creative solutions are best met by a diverse workforce to attempt new solutions to persistent challenges. We propose a STrategic Academic Research Training Core to bring out the unique strenghts of our PHSU faculty in feeding a diverse workforce. The goal of the project is to provide customized training based on the recognized needs among our institution's faculty and allow them to more rapidly progress in an academic research career path.
