# SPeCTRE 2.0: The Sunflower Pediatric Clinical Trials Research Extension

> **NIH NIH UG1** · UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS MEDICAL CENTER · 2021 · $412,931

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
Children living in rural and underserved communities experience poorer health and worse health outcomes
than children living in other areas. Our state, Kansas, exemplifies this problem, with rural children having lower
immunization rates, higher infant mortality rates, and higher rates of obesity than their urban and suburban
counterparts. Also, children and families from rural and underserved areas are much less likely to participate in
clinical trials, which could study these and other health conditions and ultimately lead to improvement in health
for these rural and underserved children and families. The purpose of the current application is to propose that
the state of Kansas, a largely rural state, renew its status as a Clinical Site of the Child Health Outcomes
(ECHO) IDeA States Pediatric Clinical Trials Network (ISPCTN). Our goals with this application are: 1) to
assure that rural and underserved children in Kansas participate in multicenter clinical trials research, and 2) to
improve the infrastructure for pediatric clinical trials in our state. The current application, Sunflower Pediatric
Clinical Trials Research Extension (SPeCTRE 2.0), has three primary aims focused on improving research
capacity through professional skills development of clinicians and researchers in our state, expanding clinical
trials to rural and underserved children in our state, and evaluating and improving the effectiveness and
efficiency of clinical trials in the network. We propose a strong administrative team and detailed administrative
plan to support this work and have an extensive network throughout our state to support our activities as
planned. Our site was very productive during the initial funding cycle and will expand on these activities during
SPeCTRE 2.0. We propose a very strong Clinical Skills Development Plan focused on implementation science
and individualized training plans that capitalizes upon our strong existing campus resources and our Clinical
and Translational Science Award (CTSA) in Kansas called Frontiers. As noted in our Rural Engagement Plan,
we plan to engage both communities and providers through our Primary Clinical Sites and our Stakeholder
Advisory Committee Sites. We also note that Kansas is a highly rural state with a high volume of pediatric
patients who are rural and underserved who we will bring to the network. Finally, our application includes a
Clinical Trial Proposal of the CoVER (The Collaboration for Vaccine Education and Research) curriculum,
which is a trial that may be considered by the network for potential future dissemination. The results of the
current work could lead to improvement in the health of rural and underserved children in the state of Kansas
and improvements in the infrastructure in our IDeA state to support future pediatric clinical trials.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10240731
- **Project number:** 5UG1OD024943-04
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS MEDICAL CENTER
- **Principal Investigator:** Ann M Davis
- **Activity code:** UG1 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $412,931
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2016-09-23 → 2025-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10240731

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10240731, SPeCTRE 2.0: The Sunflower Pediatric Clinical Trials Research Extension (5UG1OD024943-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10240731. Licensed CC0.

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