The John Jay College of Criminal Justice, a designated Hispanic-serving institution, is seeking 1.2 million dollars from the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities to build research infrastructure and capacity (BRIC) that integrates public health research and criminal justice policy analysis. This three-year BRIC plan will begin in January 2011 and end in December 2013. The Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University will participate as an institutional partner. A 7-member John Jay BRIC team and a 5-member Advisory Committee will be formed to execute a focus institutional development for research excellence. Components of this BRIC project will include the mentored research career development of two junior BRIC investigators, the training of six BRIC investigators in health research and NIH grant writing through Columbia Summer Research Institute, six mentored research grant applications, nine sub-ventioned APHA/NCCHC conference presentations, and the creation of the Research Methods Enhancement Initiative to promote the use of computer-based qualitative and geospatial methods through new undergraduate course offerings and college-wise training workshops. These project activities will receive annual in-house evaluations for accountability and quality control;a summative meta-evaluation will be conducted by external scientists at the end to provide an overall assessment of the BRIC achievements and recommendations for creating conditions to sustain these gains. Columbia University, located within 6 miles of John Jay College, will provide intense and continuous mentoring, training, and evaluative services for institutional role-modeling. It is expected that by the end of this project, a research program with a continuous flow of correctional health publications and funded studies in the pipeline will be supported by an active academic agenda aimed at training faculty and students in computer-based research methods and health disparities in criminal justice. The attainment of these goals will pave the way for the planning and establishment of a Center for Excellence in Correctional Health and a joint MA/MPH degree program in criminal justice and community health in collaboration with a local school of public health.
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