# Northwestern University Minority Health and Health Disparities Research Training (NU-MHRT)

> **NIH NIH T37** · NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY · 2021 · $283,553

## Abstract

ABSTRACT
Efforts to understand and eliminate health disparities are hampered by the disproportionately low
representation of health disparities populations in biomedical, behavioral, clinical, and social sciences
research, domestically and globally. This has profound implications for the cultural appropriateness and quality
of health research and health care involving health disparity populations. The proposed training program
“Northwestern University Minority
Health
and
Health
Disparities
Research
Training”
(
NU
MHRT
) will provide
health disparities research training experiences to minority and other underrepresented students and trainees
(heretofore “trainees”) at the undergraduate through postdoctoral levels in order to prepare and enhance the
next generation of scientists committed to research for improving minority health and reducing health
disparities. NU-MHRT will also foster a health disparities research training partnership between Northwestern
University (NU) and two federally designated Minority Serving Institutions, the University of Illinois at Chicago
(UIC) and Northeastern Illinois University (NEIU). Northwestern offers a world class research training
environment with state-of-the-art multidisciplinary and inter-disciplinary research programs in the health
sciences. Leveraging our transdisciplinary team of well-established research faculty mentors, alongside our
strong track record fostering community partnership, engagement, education, outreach and research career
development of students from health disparities populations, over 5 years this program will provide mentored
research training and immersion experiences, individual career development, and tailored didactic learning
opportunities to support the advancement of 50 trainees from health disparities populations to their next stage
in health disparities-focused research careers. A strength of this program is the setting of Northwestern
University in Chicago, a metropolitan area rife with health disparities and an incubator of diverse, multi-
disciplinary research programs aimed at reducing those disparities, including many led by the PI and Program
Faculty within Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, the Institute of Public Health and
Medicine, and the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center. Specific Aims are: 1) Provide health
disparities research training to 50 trainees (10/year, including 5 undergraduates, 3 pre-, and 2 post-doctoral
trainees), from diverse underrepresented backgrounds, to foster the next generation of scientists committed to
research focused on improving minority health and reducing health disparities; 2) Establish and support a
cadre of research mentors and trainee candidates for health disparities research training by refining a health
disparities research training partnership between NU and Chicago area institutions serving underserved health
disparity populations and underrepresented students; 3) Formally evaluate trainee progress...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10125004
- **Project number:** 5T37MD014248-03
- **Recipient organization:** NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** MELISSA A. SIMON
- **Activity code:** T37 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $283,553
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-07-18 → 2024-02-29

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10125004

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10125004, Northwestern University Minority Health and Health Disparities Research Training (NU-MHRT) (5T37MD014248-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10125004. Licensed CC0.

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