# The Research to Reduce Disparities in Disease (R2D2)

> **NIH NIH R25** · MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY · 2020 · $177,404

## Abstract

The seemingly immutable existence of racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in cardiovascular disease
is problematic. Medical doctors play an important role in the nation's health by treating the sick. Public health
complements medicine by focusing on population health. Some argue that public health and medicine move in
opposite directions but this is a false dichotomy. Despite billions of dollars spent on research and volumes of
published studies, there is no consensus on why racial and ethnic disparities in CVDs such as hypertension
have not been reduced. We seek to prepare a new generation of medical students from groups
underrepresented in medicine to address CVD disparities through transdisciplinary research that combines the
best of medicine and public health. The purpose of this proposal is to create a two-summer, developmental
research program titled, The Research to Reduce Disparities in Disease (R2D2). The R2D2 program seeks to
develop “hands-on” research skills of medical students at the Michigan State University College of Human
Medicine (MSU-CHM). It will train medical students to conduct community-based translational research on
CVD health disparities. The mission is to create a research education program that will make MSU-CHM
medical students more competitive for research-oriented residency programs. The Specific Aims are to: (1)
Implement and evaluate a two-summer, developmental community-based public health research education
program for a racially and ethnically diverse group of medical students. (2) Create two new summer “hands-on”
research methods classes to increase practical research skills among medical students. (3) Recruit and select
seven medical students each year, “ramping up” to 14 students in the program by the second year and
maintain a total of 14 students in years two through five of the grant. (4) Train the selected students in
community-based research methods, including the collection, entry, management, and analysis of data, as well
as effective data presentation and visualization. (5) Pair each student with a funded faculty mentor who will
supervise the student within a two-month community-based research project that will culminate in a paper
submitted for publication. Medicine and public health are natural allies. However, they do not always work
optimally together. Professional differences in training and perspectives have led to a false impression that
public health professionals only work “upstream” on prevention while physicians are only concerned with
“downstream” patient care. R2D2 will prepare medical students to conduct the transdisciplinary research
needed to achieve health equity in cardiovascular diseases. We aim to train medical students who will bridge
the boundary between medicine and public health. R2D2 medical students will hopefully, can bring the world of
biomedicine and the world of psychosocial public health together, bringing biology into the community and the
community into the c...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10015328
- **Project number:** 5R25HL140319-03
- **Recipient organization:** MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Todd William Lucas
- **Activity code:** R25 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $177,404
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2018-07-01 → 2023-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10015328

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10015328, The Research to Reduce Disparities in Disease (R2D2) (5R25HL140319-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10015328. Licensed CC0.

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