Community Engaged Research to Promote Health Equity (CERPHE) Pilot Grants
Accepting Applications
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.
ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS
APPLICATION DEADLINE
October 14, 2024
NOTIFICATION OF AWARD
December 2024
AWARD START DATE
January 1, 2025
Category I: Pilot Grants
- Early Career Investigators
Eligibility: Instructors and Assistant Professors, including Clinician Educators
Funding Amount: Up to $50,000 for up to 18 months
Purpose: Provides PI, staff, and community partner salary and non-salary support for hypothesis-driven or hypothesis-seeking pilot research that is expected to advance health equity and where pilot findings are likely to lead to external funding, with the ultimate goal to inform actions to advance health equity. This category is intended to help early-career applicants become independent researchers. The study must be a pilot, concept, development, or feasibility proposal.
- Mid/Senior Investigators
Eligibility: Associate Professors and Professors, including Clinician Educators
Funding Amount: Up to $50,000 for up to 18 months
Purpose: Provides non-salary support for high-impact, high-risk projects. We encourage investigators to take their research in a new direction or apply a novel approach to address disparities or to partner with communities. The grant is intended to facilitate projects, which are highly innovative and, if successful, will facilitate novel directions in research that is fundable by external funding agencies. The research must be a pilot, concept, development, or feasibility proposal.
Category II: Pilot Trainee Grants
Eligibility: Postdoctoral Scholars and Clinical Fellows
Funding Amount: $5,000 fr up to 18 months (non-salary support)
- Applications are 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, patients, or other key groups using a community-engaged research approach. A focus on health equity is also required. 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. Please apply here.
- 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 no-cost extensions.
- The following are not eligible
- Visiting scholars to Stanford
- Adjunct Faculty and Affiliates
- 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.
