The overarching goal of the Penn BIRCWH is to develop a cadre of independent investigators in women's health who are sophisticated in their knowledge of how sex and gender differences and similarities create opportunities to improve health and well-being for women. The focus on sex and gender differences as the lens with which the Penn BIRCWH Scholars will consider women's health is consistent with the recent emphasis from the National Institute of Health and the Office of Research on Women's Health to study both sexes/genders when possible. The University of Pennsylvania (Penn) has a long-standing commitment to women's health and will provide BIRCWH Scholars with incomparable opportunities for interdisciplinary research focusing on the biomedical, social science, health services, communications, and economic aspects of women's health in the United States and abroad. The proposed program will have a steady state of 3 BIRCWH Scholars (senior post-doctoral fellows or early junior faculty) with financial and programmatic support from the University of Pennsylvania Office of the Vice Provost for Research and the Schools of Medicine, Nursing, Veterinary Medicine and Arts and Sciences, in addition to that provided by the BIRCWH funding mechanism. The Penn BIRCWH Program will benefit from Penn President Dr. Amy Gutmann's mandate to create one school, encouraging interdisciplinary, between-school collaborations. Scholars will be chosen by the Advisory Board and Program/Research Directors and will be assigned faculty mentor teams from the above mentioned schools, Wharton School of Business, the Annenberg School of Communications, the School of Social Policy and Practice, and the Leonard Davis Institute, insuring that Scholars understand the implications of their specific area of women's health research in the broadest terms possible. Scholars will benefit from the exceptional intellectual and career development opportunities from across the university, in addition to those included in the BIRCWH Core Activities. Successful completion of these goals will create independent investigators who are skilled in collaborative, interdisciplinary research, fostering ground- breaking instead of incremental advances in women's health.
Very few medical disorders or psychosocial determinants of health and disease are without some important differences between women and men. Whether these differences are in disease prevalence, etiology, phenomenology, treatment or health care utilization/services, biomedical and social science researchers must be fully capable of addressing these factors in their own research in order to better the health of both men and women. This faculty career development program proposes to utilize the wealth of intellectual, fiscal and mentoring resources of the University of Pennsylvania to accomplish this important and timely goal.
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