This is the first submission of this application for competitive renewal of the Adolescent Health Promotion Research Training Program at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. The goal of the program is to provide training in reproductive health research to post-doctoral Adolescent Medicine physicians. Effective interventions to address high rates of sexually transmitted infections, including HIV, and pregnancy among adolescents and young adults are lacking. Adolescent Medicine specialists, those who have contact with adolescent and young adult patients in a clinical setting, must serve as leaders in the development of new strategies to effectively prevent HIV, other STIs, and pregnancy. This requires clinicians to build upon scientific advancements from varied disciplines through collaboration with epidemiologists, behavioral scientists, psychologists, social scientists, statisticians, and geneticists. To date, we have successfully recruited and trained five Adolescent Medicine fellows in reproductive health research, four of whom are under-represented minorities. All three fellows who graduated or who are about to graduate from the program were recruited into academic positions. Based on these successes, we now request an additional five years of funding to support three fellows per year, one position for each of the three years of research training. The Johns Hopkins University is uniquely qualified to develop and maintain such a program given the on-going research of our faculty, the successful outcomes of our previous trainees, the resources available, and the continuous influx of bright dedicated Adolescent Medicine physicians. The training program is unique at Johns Hopkins University because of its emphasis on the intersection of HIV and STI prevention and adolescents.
The goal of the Adolescent Health Promotion Research Training Program is to provide training in reproductive health research to post-doctoral Adolescent Medicine physicians. The physicians who graduate this program will ultimately contribute to the scientific development of innovative and effective prevention strategies for pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections including HIV among youth.
Showing the most recent 10 out of 26 publications
