# Population Health Aging Research - Advancing Health Equity and Diversity (PHAR-AHEaD)

> **NIH NIH R25** · STANFORD UNIVERSITY · 2023 · $397,035

## Abstract

ABSTRACT
There is an urgent need to diversify the research workforce to meet current and future
research demands that support a healthy aging society. Lack of diversity is an important
problem in Medicine, Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (MSTEM), where
inadequate institutional preparation and economic challenges can serve as barriers to entry.
Population health sits at the nexus of the MSTEM fields and thus a training program in
population health aging research is uniquely suited to serve as a bridge linking
underrepresented students to multiple MSTEM disciplines. Moreover, these fields are critical
for developing solutions to support health equity in aging. Our goal is to support scholars from
backgrounds underrepresented in MSTEM fields in the academic pathways to graduate
education and research in aging and population health. The Stanford Population Health Aging
Research - Advancing Health Equity and Diversity (PHAR-AHEaD) summer program is an 8-
week training and research experience for college students from underrepresented and
historically excluded groups in the health sciences. We bring together a diverse team of over
25 faculty members from across Stanford University to foster an inclusive academic
environment where college students can explore the core foundations of population health
sciences under the umbrella of a life course perspective on aging. Population health integrates
a spectrum of disciplines; a unique strength of our program is the breadth of training in aging,
epidemiology, statistics, health policy, and community engagement. We pair this instruction
with a faculty mentored research project to build skills and support student contributions to
team science. We enrich students with professional development opportunities to learn the
“hidden curriculum” of academia; these unwritten lessons and values are disproportionately
inaccessible to students from historically excluded backgrounds. PHAR-AHEaD was founded
on the principles that research experiences, faculty networks, and professional development
are crucial components in graduate school admissions and future success as a researcher.
Access to these opportunities is not equitably distributed, leading to underrepresentation and
exclusion in the field. We are committed to reducing known barriers and creating a more
equitable educational experience. This program will ignite interest and lower the barriers for
students from historically excluded and underrepresented groups to pursue further studies and
careers in aging and population health research.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10629072
- **Project number:** 1R25AG081164-01
- **Recipient organization:** STANFORD UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Michelle Christina Odden
- **Activity code:** R25 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2023
- **Award amount:** $397,035
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2023-04-15 → 2028-01-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10629072

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10629072, Population Health Aging Research - Advancing Health Equity and Diversity (PHAR-AHEaD) (1R25AG081164-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10629072. Licensed CC0.

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