Six seed grants for community research

Six research teams that will work together with community agencies to conduct health research have received a total of $75,000 in seed grant funds from Spectrum, which oversees Stanford's Clinical and Translational Science Award from the NIH.

All of the projects aim to address health needs in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties. Two seek to improve child health in East Palo Alto and East Menlo Park through an effort to create more safe play areas in neighborhoods and a teacher-training program that fosters better mental health in the classroom. Two of the studies will test the use of mobile devices, respectively, as a way for diabetic teens to manage glucose levels, and for seniors to notify city officials about obstacles to walkability, safety and healthful-food access in their neighborhoods. The other two studies will explore ways to strengthen bonds between academic medicine and the community, by teaching empathy skills to medical residents at safety net hospitals and by developing better practice guidelines for community research collaborations.

This year's award recipients include:

• "Safety First: Head Start parents advocating for safe physical activity in their community" — Lisa Chamberlain, MD, MPH, assistant professor of pediatrics, Elizabeth Baca, MD, clinical instructor of pediatrics, and Janine Bruce, MPH, program director for the School of Medicine's Pediatric Advocacy Program, partnering with the Institute for Human and Social Development and the City of East Palo Alto.
• "Toward school-based mental health interventions: Building a partnership between the Stanford Early Life Stress Research Program and the Ravenswood City School District" — Victor Carrion, MD, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, partnering with the Ravenswood City School District in East Palo Alto and East Menlo Park.
• "A multi-user platform leveraging text messaging to improve glucose management among adolescent type-1 diabetics" — Bruce Buckingham, MD, professor, and Avni Shah, MD, clinical assistant professor, both in pediatric endocrinology, partnering with San Mateo Medical Center and Medic Mobile.
• "Advocating for environments that support active living using the Stanford Healthy Neighborhood Discovery Tool: A community-based participatory research approach" — Abby King, PhD, professor of health research and policy and of medicine, and Randall Stafford, MD, PhD, professor of medicine, both at the Stanford Prevention Research Center, partnering with the Fair Oaks Family Health Center in Redwood City.
• "Teaching humanities to improve empathy and diagnostic skills: Implementation and evaluation of an educational intervention for medicine residents at a safety net teaching hospital" — Lars Osterberg, MD, MPH, clinical associate professor and chief of general internal medicine at the Palo Alto Veterans Affairs Health Care System, and Yeuen Kim, MD, clinical assistant professor, with the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center.
• "Strengthening emerging community-based participatory research collaboration and practices" — Stafford and Lisa Goldman Rosas, PhD, MPH, instructor of medicine, both at the Stanford Prevention Research Center, partnering with the Indian Health Center of Santa Clara Valley.

These grants were awarded by Spectrum's Office of Community Health, which aims to build community-responsive programs at the School of Medicine and to meet the diverse health needs of surrounding communities. It does this by supporting leaders in community health who are committed to the development of sustained local partnerships and initiatives that address important public health challenges.