Women's Health & Aging:Research and Leadership Training

University Of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison WI

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This is a competing renewal of the University of Wisconsin's postdoctoral training grant, Women's Health and Aging: Research and Leadership Development (T32 AG00265; PI: Carnes). This T32, which will support 5 postdoctoral trainees per year, is unique in that the grant itself is an integral part of a larger "experiment" to increase the number of women and underrepresented minorities in academic medicine and science. Other pieces of this "living laboratory" include the Women's Health Research Fellowship, the Women's Health and Aging Clinical Scientist Development Program (K12), the Alternative Tracks to Leadership in Academic Science (ATLAS) Program, the K30 Clinical Investigator Preparatory Program (CIPP), the NSF ADVANCE Institutional Transformation program, and the UW National Center of Excellence in Women's Health. Capitalizing on the fact that investigators are drawn toward the study of something with which they have a personal connection, strategies focus on using the theme of older women's health research to draw more women into careers in aging research. The program then provides trainees with effective research and career mentoring by experienced investigators, inclusion in a network of women academic physicians and scientists to decrease professional isolation and provide role modeling, and commitment to the potential for multiple years of support that can bridge critical junctures in the development of an independent research program especially when starting a family. A similar strategy will use the theme of research on the health differences and disparities between populations of older women to draw underrepesented minorities toward aging research. This strategy is enhanced by a partnership with Howard University. The research faculty assembled for this T32 are outstanding clinical, epidemiological, social, or basic scientists. The competency-based CIPP curriculum with individualized career development plans formulated for each trainee in on-going consultation with a medical educator are major strengths of the training program. Program and trainee evaluation coordinated by CIPP uses multiple measures. Outcomes from the first four years of this T32 are promising and suggest that the proposed initiatives will be successful models to stimulate new gerontological research while increasing the number of women in academic medicine and science as well as the overall diversity of the research workforce in aging.