Reaching New Heights: Strengthening Health Professions Research at UTRGV - Project Summary/Abstract Although health professions (allied health, nursing, social work, clinical psychology) represent more than 80% of the healthcare workforce, rigorous research within these fields, a cornerstone of evidence-based practice, is often trailing behind that of other medical professions. The urgency of closing this gap is amplified for health professionals practicing in communities characterized by poverty, low educational attainment, health care access challenges and, consequently, poor health outcomes. Thus, building and strengthening HP biomedical research capacity is vital to improving health. The primary goal of the proposed study is to lay the foundation for a robust health professions research environment at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV). Located along the Texas-Mexico border, UTRGV serves one of the most medically underserved regions in the United States. Guided by a conceptual framework that integrates multiple levels and domains of influence, our overall objective is to engage the UTRGV HP community in a structured, comprehensive research needs assessment and develop a corresponding action plan characterized by clear, feasible, measurable, sustainable, and institutionally championed action items that support high-quality, cutting-edge biomedical research. To achieve our objective, our multidisciplinary team will conduct an environmental scan, analyze research- related policies and procedures, assess faculty research capacity and needs, examine the institutional research support infrastructure, and explore student research support and opportunities. This will allow us to: Aim 1. Identify the structural, systemic, social, and psychological factors impacting biomedical research productivity of HP faculty. Aim 2. Identify the critical interactions between factors, domains and levels of influence enabling and hindering research productivity. Aim 3. Develop an action plan to strengthen biomedical research capacity of HP faculty, with a focus on community-relevant health. Our work will add a much-needed perspective to advance health from bench to bedside. The proposed assessment and action plan promise to build a multidisciplinary, interprofessional biomedical research capacity that will uniquely position UTRGV to advance health research, support the pipeline of the future biomedical research workforce, and serve as a research capacity building model for resource-limited institutions.
