Research to Advance Connected and Community Health Equity (ReACH Equity) - Project Summary: The UC Davis REsearch to Advance Connected and Community Health Equity (ReACH Equity) Predoctoral Training Program Plan The UC Davis ReACH Equity predoctoral training program responds to NINR’s call to action to address the impacts of societal inequities in health and healthcare by training a new generation of scientists to employ advanced, multidisciplinary, multi-level methods to improve health equity. We will provide a rich training environment for 26 predoctoral trainees to establish the evidence base for improving health equity across the lifespan among historically and presently marginalized communities (HMCs) through research at the systemic/policy, community/services, and family/individual levels. The objectives are to: 1) recruit and retain a diverse group of predoctoral trainees who conduct rigorous, innovative, equity-focused research in prevention science and population health; 2) empower ReACH Equity trainees to make informed decisions about the breadth of research-focused career paths, including academia, public policy, and industry; and 3) educate trainees in multidisciplinary approaches to equity-focused prevention science and population health, including core doctoral competencies (e.g., conceptual knowledge, developing important research questions, community engagement, all facets of study design, implementation, evaluation, and dissemination, and professional development). These objectives are accomplished in a carefully structured program that leverages the expertise of 50 mentors, the majority of whom are underrepresented in science, from 17 individual Departments in three Colleges, the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing, and the School of Medicine on both our Sacramento and Davis campuses. These mentors’ expertise cuts across the disciplinary spectra (e.g., nursing science, human development, psychology, sociology, nutrition, computer science, public health sciences, health policy), focuses on a wide variety of HMC populations, and addresses inequities from prenatal populations through older adults. We will use the peer-onsite-distance model of mentoring, where trainees will be matched to a primary mentorship team that includes one experienced mentor and one mentor-in-training; this team will serve as their content experts. Each cohort also will have a cohort mentor to facilitate group and peer mentoring. Trainees will engage in didactic and experiential learning that will provide them with the core competencies and in-depth theoretical knowledge required for successful careers in health equity by ensuring that advances in equity-focused prevention science and population health are utilized among HMCs. We will engage in continuous quality improvement through ongoing internal evaluation of processes and outcomes, as well as reviews from an external advisory board and a local community advisory board comprised of patients and families. The disciplinary diversity combined with expertise mentoring individuals from HMCs among our pool of mentors will support trainees to invoke research questions that enable collaboration with a multidisciplinary team of investigators to elucidate the complex interplay of factors that contribute to health inequities, and then to use multiple perspectives and methodologies to identify sustainable solutions.
