# Overcoming the triple threat to diversity in the health science workforce: empowering the next gen.

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF TX MD ANDERSON CAN CTR · 2024 · $359,526

## Abstract

Interventions to enhance the pool of underrepresented minority (URM) groups in the research workforce,
including Blacks or African Americans, Hispanics or Latinos, American Indians or Alaska Natives, Native
Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders, and students from disadvantaged backgrounds are needed to sustain
the training and transition into research careers for these groups. In the proposed project, we will address and
mitigate three career threats for biomedical and behavioral researchers-in-training (the “Triple Threat”)—
perceived discrimination, fixed ability mindset, and impostor feelings —that may harm trainees’ career
motivation and retention, via interventions aimed at trainees and their mentors. A key aspect of our project is
that we not only address the Triple Threat in trainees, but also address the Triple Threat in their mentors, who
critically shape the environment in which the trainees learn and work. Both interventions will involve <3.5 hour
synchronous and interactive virtual workshops that introduce the Triple Threat, provide example strategies that
trainees/mentors can use to mitigate the Triple Threat, and have trainees/mentors adapt strategies and/or
generate new strategies that they can consistently use over time. We will recruit 140 mentors (and 420 of their
trainees) with the help of Site Partners from six leading institutions around the country. Trainees and mentors
will be cluster randomized to either treatment (Triple Threat Intervention) or active control group, and will take
measures of key variables pre- and post-intervention, and annually until funding ends. These key measures
include, for trainees, their experiences of the Triple Threat, career threat coping skills, career motivation
(research self-efficacy, scientist identity, expectancy beliefs, and values), and career outcomes (intentions and
steps taken to pursue research paths, behaviors/products); and, for mentors, their awareness of the Triple
Threat and use of specific strategies (both inclusive and supportive) to mitigate it. Using multilevel modeling,
growth models, multigroup SEM, and repeated measures MANOVA, we will evaluate the effects of the two
interventions on short-, medium-, and long-term outcomes, and whether the interventions have stronger effects
for URM trainees. We expect to find, in line with theoretical predictions, that trainees who receive the
intervention will report decreased experience of the Triple Threat, and increased coping skills, career
motivation, and career outcomes, compared to trainees in the control condition; that mentors who receive the
intervention will report stronger engagement in behaviors/practices to mitigate the Triple Threat than mentors
in the control condition; and that trainees who receive the intervention and who also have mentors who
received the intervention will experience the most positive outcomes. We also expect that the intervention may
be most beneficial to URM students, as well as students from multi...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10843274
- **Project number:** 5R01GM147064-03
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF TX MD ANDERSON CAN CTR
- **Principal Investigator:** Shine Chang
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $359,526
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2022-08-15 → 2025-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10843274

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10843274, Overcoming the triple threat to diversity in the health science workforce: empowering the next gen. (5R01GM147064-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10843274. Licensed CC0.

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