The Department of Maternal and Child Health of the School of Public Health, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) proposes to develop a training program in perinatal health research in collaboration with the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Wake Forest University School of Medicine (WFUSM) and the Latin American Center of Perinatology (CLAP) as the Major Foreign Collaborator. The program will also involve work with the Departments of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Pediatrics at UNC. The title of the proposed training is the Latin American Perinatal Health (LAPH) Training Program. The main objective is to enhance perinatal health research training opportunities for scholars and clinicians from Argentina and Uruguay. Our secondary objective is to encourage greater interagency collaboration and boost infrastructure development in centers already involved in maternal and perinatal research. The training program will seek the participation of individuals involved in the perinatal research activities of the CLAP network. These individuals will be recruited from CLAP headquarters in Montevideo, Uruguay; the main research coordinating center in Argentina, the Rosarian Center for Perinatal Studies (CREP); and from collaborating hospitals throughout Argentina and Uruguay. The LAPH Training Program will provide training opportunities over a 5-year period for: 2 predoctoral students for up to 4 1/2 years (including one year of in-country research at CLAP headquarters), 2 postdoctoral trainees for 2 1/2 years each (including 1/2 year re-entry grants), 12 clinicians in short-term training activities, and clinicians and researchers from all over Latin America who have access to the Internet. The training plan for predoctoral students will involve the Maternal and Child Health Department and the Departments of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Pediatrics at UNC and will include UNC-based courses, preparation of the dissertation proposal, and one year of mentored research at CLAP headquarters in Montevideo, Uruguay. Postdoctoral trainees will receive individualized research training and participate in the ongoing research activities of core faculty members at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, WFUSM. Clinicians involved in the short-term training program will attend courses provided by CLAP in Montevideo, Uruguay. By the fourth year of the program, the short-term training course will be available on the LAPH web site as a self-guided tutorial.
