Sergio Aguilar-Gaxiola - US grants

DESCRIPTION (Provided by applicant): This amended application is requesting support for the NIMH M-RISP Program at California State University, Fresno (CSUF). In this application, two individual projects and a mental health research infrastructure development center are proposed to initiate the development of this program. The general objective of the proposed program is to provide the foundations for conducting research that facilitates the development and utilization of high quality mental health interventions for ethnic minorities. The specific aims of the proposed program are to: 1) involve faculty members in innovative action research on mental health issues that leads to acquiring a competitive research grant; 2) increase the participation of undergraduate and masters? level students in ethnic minority mental health research; 3) support research development activities for faculty involved in or initiating mental health-research programs; 4) enhance and strengthen the institutional infrastructure to conduct ethnic minority research. The proposed program for faculty research involves two components. The first component is a Mental Health Research - Infrastructure Development Center that will facilitate the development of the research infrastructure by developing plans for faculty research activities, faculty and student development activities, a technical/statistical core, and linkages to major research centers to facilitate the development of mentoring relationships. The second component involves Individual Faculty Research Projects. Two IRPs are proposed with four participating faculty members. Several graduate and undergraduate students will gain important mental health research experience through participating in the M-RISP program activities. The second component also involves faculty recruitment and development activities. The M-RISP faculty will participate in monthly meetings and summer training programs designed to enhance their knowledge and skills in conducting ethnic minority mental health research.

The goal of the Community Liaison Core (CLC) is to support the overall mission of the UC Davis RCMAR through the development of a research infrastructure that will support RCMAR scienfists in their research around reducfion of disparifies in cognitive health and healthcare services among older Lafino adults. The CLC will develop a bidirecfional and contextualized model and strategies that will enable both researchers and participafing communifies to quickly and effectively implement clinical trials around cognitive research to improve physical and cognifive funcfion. The CLC core will support the RCMAR mission through four Specific Aims: 1) Expand exisfing networks of community-based organizafions and groups as a resource for community-engaged research on reducing disparifies for older Lafinos, 2) Create a program that will allow RCMAR scholars to facilitate recruitment, retention, translation and bidirectional communication with host communifies, 3) Develop, evaluate, and disseminate informafion on techniques and strategies to recruit and retain older Lafinos in minority aging research, 4) Disseminate culturally and linguisfically appropriate informafion on research advances related to cognitive health and impairment to Lafinos in Sacramento and California's Central Valley. We will accomplish these aims through consultafion with a RCMAR Community Advisory Board comprised of leaders of Sacramento and Central Valley Lafino community organizafions; and the Lafino Health Advisory Board, comprised of pracfice-based physicians in Central Valley community clinics serving large Lafino populafions.

Abstract - Community Outreach and Engagement Core The Community Outreach and Engagement Core (COEC) will foster a culture of collaboration among environmental health scientists, community organizations, environmental justice experts and public health agencies to create and sustain multi-directional partnerships for environmental health research that is responsive to the health needs and concerns of the most vulnerable communities in California's Central Valley. This region, considered to have the most productive agricultural industry in the country, also leads the nation in areas of concentrated poverty, environmental contamination, and poor environmental health conditions. Specific COEC activities to address these challenges will include 1) partnership development through a comprehensive needs and opportunities assessment of both EHS CC investigators and the most vulnerable populations and places in California's Central Valley 2) Community Stakeholders Advisory Committee to help ensure that the Center's activities are informed by the needs and concerns of these communities and that the Center proactively engages community leaders in meaningful ways; 3) a multifaceted training program building capacity of both EHS CC scientists and community partners; 4) a translation and dissemination process to put EHS CC results in the hands of policy makers, public agency personnel, health professionals and community leaders to support their health promotion strategies. The COEC is integrated with all other Center components. This will be achieved through 1) the Administrative Core's Center-wide annual retreat in which the COEC will oversee a community stakeholder-planned session; 2) COEC leaders and stakeholders review of proposals for Pilot Projects for their community relevance; 3) the COEC will collaborate with the Career Development Program to provide early stage investigators and other Center members with training in communication skills and in presentation of EHS research results to non-technical audiences, as well as opportunities to teach science literacy and 4) The COEC and community stakeholders collaborate with the Integrative Health Sciences Facility Core and the Exposure Facility Core, to participate in the Design and Interpretation Clinics to learn about the research process and provide community perspectives on relevance to their lives.

Project Summary Our proposed project, Training Promotoras/Community Health Workers using Culturally and Linguistically- Appropriate Research Best Practices, has the objective to develop, demonstrate, and disseminate culturally and linguistically sensitive training to improve the translation of clinical research in underserved communities. This project is a partnership between CTSAs at the University of Michigan, University of Florida, and University of California-Davis, three CTSA hubs with a network of community partners in diverse areas with large numbers of Hispanic and African American individuals. Community health workers (CHWs), embedded leaders within underserved communities, have an important role supporting research at community sites and are increasingly being incorporated into research teams for their ability to reduce barriers in translation, particularly in regards to research on health disparities. However, problems with CHWs understanding and application of research best practices exist. Training for CHWs in research best practices is variable, not tailored to the research role of CHWs, and not designed to train individuals who work in culturally or linguistically diverse communities. These training deficits hamper formation of integrated teams of researchers and community partners and miss the opportunity to create research advocates at community sites. Our foundational work involved the development of the first-of-its-kind, competency-based online training in Social and Behavioral Research Best Practices for clinical research professionals, currently being disseminated nationally. A critical need still exists to adapt and broaden training of the CHW workforce to reduce barriers in research translation in underserved communities. To address this need, we propose development of a culturally and linguistically sensitive online research best practices course to train CHW ?Champions? and a community-academic partnership model to deliver a mentored, peer-led program at community sites to provide competency-based research best practices education for community partners. Our long-term goal is to train CHWs using a competency-based, culturally and linguistically sensitive training program that includes easily-accessible online training resources available in both English and Spanish for use by research teams and CHWs. Our diverse group of stakeholders including CHWs, promotoras, clinical research professionals, community members, and regional and national leaders in organizations representing CHWs and researchers will ensure representation of many perspectives in all aspects of project development and dissemination. Our specific aims are to 1) develop and evaluate a research best practices online course for CHWs, 2) demonstrate effectiveness of research best practices training for CHWs at community sites, and 3) disseminate the course throughout the CTSA consortium and beyond.