# From Biological to Social Processes: Interdisciplinary Training in Life Course Research

> **NIH NIH T32** · UNIV OF NORTH CAROLINA CHAPEL HILL · 2022 · $481,180

## Abstract

Title: From Biological to Social Processes: Interdisciplinary Training in Life Course Research
The poor overall health status of the US population in comparison with our high-income peers and the
staggering gaps in key measures of health and well-being by socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity, and gender
across the life course highlight the urgency at which we must address the factors and mechanisms that lead to
poor health outcomes. At the same time, it has become ever more apparent that scientific paradigms and
research approaches need to more fully incorporate the complex constellation of factors that fundamentally
influence health and well-being from birth through adulthood. For these reasons, novel integrative research,
from cells to society, is needed to better address the social and biological factors that cause persistent health
inequalities and result in relatively poor overall levels of health in US society. This renewal application of the
Interdisciplinary Training in Life Course Research (ITLCR) program proposes continuation of an innovative and
exciting predoctoral and postdoctoral training program that is producing and will continue to produce highly
trained interdisciplinary trainees who enter from either the social sciences or health sciences and who are
trained to conduct integrative work across these areas to address some of the country’s most pressing health
problems. Specifically, our program recruits promising trainees from both the social and health sciences and
focuses on five critical objectives. First, our trainees gain substantial expertise in a gap area of study outside of
their own discipline. Second, our trainees are immersed into interdisciplinary interactions, exchanges, and
experiences that broaden their scientific proficiency. Third, our trainees learn from leading experts on how to
conduct integrated biological/health-social population health research at the highest level. Fourth, our trainees
are provided with a first-rate structure and culture to produce their own integrative research at the highest level.
And fifth, our trainees are instructed on best practices in conducting integrated research with the highest
ethical standards in mind. Our trainees develop into creative and flexible scientists who are able to develop
new research pathways and create the innovative unifying frameworks that arise from crossing disciplinary
boundaries. Specifically, we seek continued support for seven pre-doctoral trainees (split between the health
and social sciences) and two post-doctoral trainees (one from each of the social and health sciences) for the
ITLCR. Since our program began in 2017, our trainees have been exceptionally productive; we have also built
a very diverse training program. With substantial guidance from the program directors and their cross-
disciplinary mentors, ITLCR trainees will continue to develop individually tailored training plans in either the
social sciences or health sciences, with the plan tailo...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10410189
- **Project number:** 2T32HD091058-06
- **Recipient organization:** UNIV OF NORTH CAROLINA CHAPEL HILL
- **Principal Investigator:** ROBERT A HUMMER
- **Activity code:** T32 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $481,180
- **Award type:** 2
- **Project period:** 2017-08-21 → 2027-04-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10410189

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10410189, From Biological to Social Processes: Interdisciplinary Training in Life Course Research (2T32HD091058-06). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10410189. Licensed CC0.

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