Pilot Grant, Training and Mentoring Core

Weill Medical Coll Of Cornell Univ, New York NY

Investigators

Linked publications, trials & patents

Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY - PILOT GRANT, TRAINING & MENTORING CORE (PGTM) The overall aim of our National Center of Excellence is to develop and disseminate health economics research on healthcare utilization, health outcomes, and health-related behaviors that informs SUD treatment and HCV and HIV care for people who use drugs. In this renewal, we will emphasize financial sustainability, advanced methods, and knowledge translation as well as development of the next generation of rigorous researchers in our field. Ever-growing treatment and prevention needs among people who use substances, combined with new sources of financial support, such as opioid settlement funds, have led to an urgent and increasing need for health economics studies that address care for substance use disorder (SUD) and for HCV and HIV among people who use drugs. Implementing associated clinical and service-delivery innovations at scale requires extensive collaboration between clinical and health economics researchers. However, only a small pool of researchers has the requisite training and expertise to conduct this collaborative research due to gaps in training and mentoring along the entire career development spectrum from undergraduate studies to postdoctoral training and to early research careers when investigators develop collaborative networks and begin to conduct independent research. Lack of research, training, and mentoring resources for investigators at these early career stages leads to a limited pipeline of health economics investigators. To address these gaps, our Pilot Grant, Training & Mentoring Core (previously the Pilot Grant & Training Core) implements a career development program comprising three pillars: pilot research awards, health economics methods training, and targeted mentoring. The Core addresses Center Aim 4 by systematically meeting needs along the career development pipeline and strengthening links among the three programs, including proactively engaging current and previous participants in additional training and mentoring opportunities and leveraging our growing alumni body to identify new candidates and mentors for the Core’s three programs. The Pilot Grant, Training & Mentoring Core has the following Specific Aims: 1) To award and administer competitive pilot research grants that support early stage researchers and those new to the field of health economics research on SUD, HCV, and HIV care for people who use drugs; and 2) to systematically expand and implement training and mentoring programs that support new generations of health economics researchers studying care for SUD and HCV/HIV among people who use drugs. The proposed Core activities will result in a growing pipeline of investigators prepared to conduct rigorous SUD and HCV/HIV health economics research.