Community-Engaged Research to Promote Health Equity (CERPHE) Trainee Pilot Grants

Applications Closed

The Stanford MCHRI is pleased to announce the Community-Engaged Research to Promote Health Equity (CERPHE) Pilot Grants. This initiative aims to use a community-engaged research approach to address the impact of structural racism and social injustice as key drivers in health disparities affecting maternal and child health. Community-Engaged Research (CEnR) is defined as:

A process that incorporates input from people who the research outcomes will impact and involves such people or groups as equal partners throughout the research process. This involvement may include co-designing research questions to solve problems, making decisions, influencing policies, and creating programs and interventions that affect their own lives.”
-
Yale Equity Research and Innovation Center.  

CEnR is an effective strategy to promote healthy equity by partnering with community organizations, patients, public health agencies, advocates, policymakers, or other key groups throughout the research process. It enhances creativity and innovation, contributes to a culture of health equity in translational research, and facilitates the rapid dissemination of study findings to impact policies and practices.  

The CERPHE Pilot Grants support community-engaged research that:

  • Highlights significant maternal and child health disparity (e.g., racial and ethnic, socioeconomic and geographic, sexual orientation and gender identity).
  • Focuses on reasons or drivers behind these disparities.
  • Proposes action-oriented strategies to promote equity and improve health outcomes in diverse communities through policy or programmatic changes and innovations. 

 

Investigators are required to engage in partnerships with communities, patients, or other relevant groups using a community-engaged research approach.  

Office of Community-Engaged Research (OCEnR) Office Hours

Applicants are required to consult with the MCHRI Office of Community Engaged Research (OCEnR). Reserve your 30-minute consultation with Dongmei Tan, Community Engaged Research Manager, via Calendly

Please be prepared and come with specific questions. If this is a resubmission, please make sure you have discussed your proposal and reviewer comments with the mentor and research team.

Note: To allow enough time for OCEnR to review your consultation request and provide input that can be fully incorporated into the proposal for a successful application, it is critical to schedule the consultation at least 6-8 weeks before the submission deadline. Any consultation requests that are less than this time frame may not be accommodated, and the applicant will be asked to submit for the next cycle to ensure that the application is as competitive as possible.

Information Session

An information session will be held to provide details about the CERPHE Pilot Grants and answer any applicant questions. 

Details:
Date: September 4, 2024
Time: 11:00 AM
Location: Online via Zoom

Register here.

APPLICATIONS CLOSED

APPLICATION DEADLINE
October 14, 2024

NOTIFICATION OF AWARD
December 2024

AWARD START DATE
January 1, 2025

Funding Details

Category I: Pilot Grants

Eligibility: Instructors and Assistant Professors, (Early Career Investigators), Associate Professors and Professors (Mid/Senior Investigators), including Clinician Educators

Funding Amount: Up to $50,000 for up to 18 months

Full CERPHE Pilot Grant Details here.

Category II: Pilot Trainee Grants

Eligibility: Postdoctoral Scholars and Clinical Fellows

Funding Amount: $5,000 fr up to 18 months (non-salary support)

Purpose: Provides non-salary support for hypothesis-driven or hypothesis-seeking pilot research. Applicants must have a primary research mentor and funding for their salary/stipend for 75% minimum research effort (e.g., MCHRI postdoctoral support or MD fellow award, T32 or equivalent, or other funding). The study must be a pilot, concept, development, or feasibility proposal. The goal of this pilot grant is to have funding specific to CEnR to pay study participants, community partners, policy partners, etc. This grant is intended to support community-engagement that builds upon a parent project that is supported by another funding mechanism or funding source.

  • Applications welcome from all faculty (instructors, CE, UML, NTLR, NTLT, UTL). Postdoctoral scholars and clinical fellows are eligible for the pilot trainee grants.
  • All applicants must have, or plan on having, a focus on maternal child health research. Research must be primarily related to maternal child health. “Child” refers to the expectant mother, oocyte, zygote, embryo, fetus, infant, child or adolescent.   
  • All applicants must plan to engage in partnerships with communities using community-engaged research approach to promote health equity. Community partners need to be identified in the application. If they are not identified, please provide a clear plan for how you will engage and establish new community partners with an example of these groups.
  • All applicants and their mentors must be MCHRI Members.
  • A Primary Research Mentor must be identified for postdoctoral scholars and clinical fellows, instructors, and assistant professors in all faculty lines.
  • All applicants must continue to be appointed at the instructor rank or above for the duration of the award, including any extensions.
  • The following are not eligible:
    • Visiting scholars to Stanford
    • Senior Research Scientists, Research Associates/Assistants
    • Former recipients of MCHRI sponsored awards who have not complied with award/reporting requirements.
    • Mentor or applicants who have not cleared overdraft(s) in previous MCHRI awards prior to applying.

The project proposed must be feasible to complete within 18 months.

Eligibility by Investigator Type

  Postdoctoral Scholars/Clinical Fellows Instructor Assistant Professor Associate Professor Professor
Trainee *        
Early Career   * *    
Mid/Senior Investigator       * *

Examples of Funded Projects: 

  • Research that engages with community partners to support under-represented racial/ethnic minority patients experiencing food insecurity and allergies through a pilot program.
  • Research to determine whether shorter, more frequent telehealth visits are feasible for publicly insured children with type 1 diabetes without compromising outcomes.
  • A pilot project to validate and improve an AntiRacism Perinatal Preferences Tool before use in a prospective study.
  • A pilot project to collect vocabulary data of children from diverse backgrounds impacted by socioeconomic disparities (SES) to examine causal links between SES - related factors and children’s language outcomes

Further Resources

A recording of an previous info session:

"How to Embed a Racial and Ethnic Equity Perspective in Research Practical Guidance for the Research Process" by Kristine Andrews, Jenita Parekh, and Shantai Peckoo strongly encouraged to ensure that research topics include an equity perspective across the entire research process.

MCHRI is committed to advancing diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice in all aspects of our work supporting research, education and resources in maternal and child health. 

All applicants will be asked to provide a DEIJ statement in their application