This grant will renew a 25-year training program in cardiovascular disease epidemiology and prevention. The overall purpose of the program is to produce behavioral and medical scientists who can conduct inter-disciplinary research aimed at the prevention of cardiovascular disease in communities. The training will be derived principally from direct research experience in an existing interdisciplinary research resource, the Stanford Center for Research in Disease Prevention (SCRDP). The SCRDP and its closely affiliated programs offer community, policy, behavioral, clinical, and laboratory studies for participation by trainees. Current SCRDP research totals about $10 million annually from NIH (66 percent), state, foundation, and industry sources. Current research programs include community-based interventions to reduce sales to and social exchange of tobacco among adolescents; evaluation of the California statewide tobacco control program; studies of ways to limit marketing and promotion of tobacco use; clinical trials of psychopharmacologic interventions for smoking and chew tobacco use; a study of advocacy training for youth at high risk for tobacco and drug use; a school-based study of the health effects of an intervention to reduce television watching; other school-based studies of nutrition and exercise interventions; studies of the effects of various dietary changes and supplements on cardiovascular and cancer risk factors; a study of exercise for preventing obesity and diabetes in poor Hispanic women; a study of exercise effects on health and well-being in elderly women care-givers; a study of exercise effects on sleep in older adults; and a study contrasting interventions based on two behavioral theories for achieving change. A program of directed study and data analysis and a core seminar program, required of each trainee, enhance the research training, as do selected opportunities for other coursework, limited patient care, and teaching. Postdoctoral trainees are closely supervised by the faculty and encouraged to publish three to four articles during their 1-3 years of training (average 2 years); predoctoral trainees are all enrolled in Ph.D. programs at Stanford University. Trainee selection is based on interest in cardiovascular disease prevention, potential for academic research career, and demonstrated excellence. Two predoctoral trainees will be selected from graduate students in the School of Education and the Departments of Epidemiology and Communication. Six postdoctoral trainees will hold either the M.D. or Ph.D. degree. Physician trainees will generally enter with three years of clinical experience in medicine, psychiatry, pediatrics, or preventive medicine. Two postdoctoral trainees will be able to enroll in a fourwquarter, 45-unit M.S. degree in epidemiology with an emphasis on clinical investigation methods.
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