Seed grants to faculty support six community health projects

Lisa Chamberlain

The Stanford Office of Community Health awarded six seed grants to faculty members that promote community health through collaboration between Stanford and local agencies. The projects include community-health-oriented research and collaborations with community-based health centers, schools and hospitals and other nonprofits.

The seed grants, which total approximately $75,000, are funded as a part of the Clinical and Translational Science Award Stanford received last year from the National Institutes of Health. The aim of the grants program is to foster relationships between Stanford researchers and the local communities by “supporting the community partners and encouraging Stanford faculty to collaborate with them,” said Jill Evans, research program director for the Office of Community Health.

Halsted Holman

“Each one of the grants focuses on health disparities in local underserved communities. The exciting part of the seed grants program is that all of the projects are responsive to a specific health need identified by the community partner,” said Evans.

To be eligible for the grant, faculty were to form new partnerships, enhance existing partnerships or support community-based research projects with organizations in San Mateo or Santa Clara counties.

Projects receiving funding include that of Lisa Chamberlain, MD, MPH, assistant professor of pediatrics, and Meg Itoh, MD, pediatric resident, who are working with the Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County to help understand the lives and health needs of young refugees in foster care in the county.

Dee West

Michaela Kiernan, PhD, senior research scientist at the Stanford Prevention Research Center, received an award in collaboration with San Mateo County to study group-based behavioral treatments for obesity. 

Halsted Holman, MD, the Berthold and Belle N. Guggenhime Professor of Medicine, received funding for a partnership with Santa Clara Family Health Plan to improve care for chronic disease.

Other recipients include Samuel So, MD, the Lui Hac Minh Professor of Medicine and director of the Asian Liver Center; Dee West, PhD, professor of health research and policy; Bang Nguyen, PhD, a member of Stanford's Cancer Center; Eunice Rodriguez, PhD, associate professor of pediatrics; and Nancy Morioka-Douglas, MD, MPH, clinical professor and physician at the Center for Education in Family and Community Medicine.

Samuel So

The additional community partners are the San Jose Unified School District, Asian Americans for Community Involvement and the Community Health Partnership.

More information is available at http://och.stanford.edu.