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SPHHS-Led Initiatives Receive UMass LIRA Funding

June 26, 2024 Research

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Aline Gubrium (at left) and Susan Shaw
Aline Gubrium (at left) and Susan Shaw

Two SPHHS faculty-led teams have received funding from the university’s Large-scale Integrative Research Awards (LIRA) Program. The program, established by the provost and vice chancellor for Research and Engagement in coordination with the chancellor, provides seed funding to support integrated team efforts to develop large-scale initiatives. Its goal is to empower creativity; to promote equitable collaborations, especially those that foster diversity, equity, and inclusion; and to attract substantial external funding. Preference is given to projects that address large-scale societal problems with potential for significant impact. 

Both SPHHS-led teams have received LIRA track 1 funding, which provides up to $30,000 in seed money to support the development of integrated team research, often spanning multiple disciplines, leading to proposals for significant extramural funding of $1 million per year or more for at least 3 years. 

The two SPHHS-led projects receiving funding are:

Center for Community Health Equity Research Center for Excellence in Investigator Development and Community Engagement

Team: Susan J. Shaw (PI – Health Promotion and Policy, and Director, Center for Community Health Equity Research), Kathryn P. Derose, Airín Martínez, Linnea Evans, and Daniel López-Cevallos (all Health Promotion and Policy, and core faculty in the Center for Community Health Equity Research).

The proposed Center for Community Health Equity Research Center for Excellence in Investigator Development and Community Engagement aims to build capacity for health equity research at UMass Amherst by fostering investigator development through pilot grants, training, and community-partnered research opportunities. To improve health for marginalized populations, the Center for Community Health Equity Research aims build skills among new investigators from underrepresented groups in community-partnered research, including proposal development, participatory research approaches, broad dissemination of findings, and how to turn results into community-led action. Expanding community and academic capacity for health equity research, coupled with a more diverse workforce, will provide evidence that can guide policies to create a more just society and expand the range of perspectives that contribute to our understanding of health equity. 

Health, Environment, and the ARTs (HEART) Research Center

Team: Aline Gubrium (PI – Health Promotion and Policy), Sarah Goff (Health Promotion and Policy), Sally Pirie (Education), Marla Miller (History), Sandy Litchfield (Architecture), and Elizabeth (Betsy) Krause (Anthropology).

Faculty across the campus, in Humanities and Fine Arts, Public Health and Health Sciences, Nursing, Social and Behavioral Sciences, and other units have been engaging in research and outreach that harnesses the power of the arts to address complex issues involving social determinants of health, such as access to high quality housing, education, safe neighborhoods, healthcare, transportation, healthy foods, and healthy living environments, all of which strongly influence health and wellbeing. The complex array of factors that make the societal challenges difficult to resolve require innovative research methods that aim to address both longstanding and emerging areas of health and environmental inequities.

To activate and catalyze this existing expertise and energy, the team aims to ultimately develop a research center called Health, Environment, and the ARTs (HEART). HEART will bring together accomplished investigators from across the university to develop innovative arts-based approaches to addressing health and environmental inequities. 

This LIRA I project focuses on developing processes for working in a multi-disciplinary collaboration that will be the cornerstone of the HEART Center. The team’s aim is to focus on building the foundation of the interdisciplinary teams needed to successfully compete for funding and to develop the skills required to successfully compete for large external grants focused on center development. 

For more information on the LIRA Program, visit the Research & Engagement website.

Award or honor posted in Research for Faculty , Staff , and Current students

Related programs

  • Community Health Education
  • Health Policy and Management

Related research

  • Health Equity

Related departments

  • Health Promotion and Policy

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