The Center for Latino Health Research Opportunities (CLaRO) at the University of Miami (UM) School of Nursing and Health Studies (SONHS) has been awarded a $3,324,993M National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant that renews CLaRO's funding to continue its work for another five years. The grant was awarded by the NIH's National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) under the highly competitive P50 Specialized Center funding mechanism Centers of Excellence in Investigator Development and Community Engagement. CLaRO brings together SONHS and Florida International University (FIU) faculty to train and mentor a new generation of outstanding Latino health disparities researchers.
CLaRO will fund at least three new pilot studies per year, granting a total of $300,000 in direct costs annually for the next five years to support early career investigators in implementing innovative, evidence-based interventions tailored to South Florida's diverse Latino communities. This is double the annual total CLaRO has been able to award for pilot projects in past years.
"This momentous award will enable CLaRO's leadership to ignite and advance the research careers of our most talented emerging investigators, providing them with the mentoring, training and resources they need to flourish," said SONHS dean and professor Hudson Santos, Ph.D., R.N., F.A.B.M.R., F.A.A.N. "The grant builds on our long-standing partnership with FIU to ensure we identify an exceptional cohort of promising scholars across the diverse South Florida region."
"We helped our initial pilot study awardees generate programs of research based on the pilots we funded, which led to their securing $28 million in NIH funding as new investigators," added Guillermo "Willy" Prado, Ph.D., SONHS professor and UM's Interim Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost, who will serve as CLaRO's principal investigator. "That track record is our recipe for success, our secret sauce: bringing very promising and stellar early career faculty together with really committed and motivated senior scholars, who are going to do everything to help them succeed."
CLaRO will encourage scholars to collaborate across the two universities to explore complex, interdisciplinary research questions that address the collection of conditions related to substance abuse, violence, and HIV/AIDS – known as the SAVA syndemic – as well as mental health issues. The grant further requires every pilot study to use an equitable implementation science approach. "Implementation science is a methodology that takes evidence-based interventions and scales them up so they can reach more people," explained Prado, who will co-lead CLaRO with FIU professor Mario De La Rosa, Ph.D. "But it also scales these interventions out by taking them into new settings—for example, taking an intervention that's been integrated into a school setting and implementing it at a primary healthcare clinic."
The studies must be developed through a lens of health equity for all populations. "Equity is achieved when systems are in place for everyone to have the best possible health outcomes," said Prado. "We ensure everyone has equitable opportunity because they're starting at the same baseline."
CLaRO's senior faculty members will provide the investigators with a year or more of intensive mentoring and training to ensure each scholars' success. Through a Research Enhancement Program offered by CLaRO's Investigator Development (ID) Core, they'll learn more about SAVA, mental health, and equitable implementation science, and will participate in networking opportunities. The ID Core also will provide activities to deepen and expand research skills among a broader cohort of SONHS and FIU students, postdoctoral fellows, and early career faculty.
"This approach will help us support the pilot grantees to develop scientific programs addressing health disparities," said Victoria Behar-Zusman, Ph.D., who will lead the ID Core in partnership with FIU assistant professor Mariana Sánchez, Ph.D., M.S.W. "We'll support their research and give them guidance and a network of belonging with other early career investigators."
CLaRO's Community Engagement and Dissemination (CED) Core will work closely with a Community Advisory Board (CAB) comprised of representatives from social services and health care agencies to guide the scholars through every stage of the research process—from conceptualizing their research questions to recruiting participants and conducting their studies in real-world settings.
"It's important to train early career investigators on how to work with the community," said SONHS research assistant professor Yannine Estrada, Ph.D., who will co-direct the CED Core along with FIU associate professor Patria Rojas, Ph.D. "In line with an equitable, social justice perspective, we need to represent the voice of the community in the work we're doing.
"Nobody has the insights the community does," agreed Prado. "The best science happens in a team approach where scholars come together with community leaders and with the populations we serve to develop the very best interventions."
Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number 1P50MD019468. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. |
About the University of Miami School of Nursing and Health Studies: The University of Miami School of Nursing and Health Studies (SONHS) transforms lives and health care through education, research, innovation, and service across the hemisphere. Established in 1948 as South Florida's first collegiate nursing program, SONHS is a world-class, prestigiously accredited, research-driven school conferring undergraduate nursing, public health, and health science degrees, and advanced nursing degrees. SONHS values its diverse faculty, students, and 250+ clinical and community health partners. Its research core includes the Biobehavioral Research Laboratory, PAHO/WHO Collaborating Centre, Center for Latino Health Research Opportunities (CLaRO), Minority Health and Health Disparities Research Training Program, and 41,000-square-foot Simulation Hospital Advancing Research and Education (S.H.A.R.E.®
