Research-Sustaining Activities: Goals, Strategies, and Priority Areas

Programs that promote diversity of biomedical workforce, enhance and strengthen the minority health and health disparities research workforce, and provide infrastructure for research capacity-building activities are needed. Continued efforts to include minorities in research and clinical trials are essential components of NIH’s minority health and health disparities activities.

• Goal 5: Support training to enhance the diversity of the biomedical workforce and to promote training and advancement of minority health and health disparities researchers
• Goal 6: Strengthen the national capacity to conduct minority health and health disparities research
• Goal 7: Ensure appropriate representation of minority and other populations experiencing health disparities in NIH-funded research

Goal 5: Support training to enhance the diversity of the biomedical workforce and to promote training and advancement of minority health and health disparities researchers

NIH’s continued promotion of a skilled and diverse workforce will facilitate further advancements in the fields of minority health and health disparities research. A modern and robust workforce with diverse skill sets and core competencies unique to minority health and health disparities research is needed to address complex research questions. Programs that address MH and HD workforce preparedness at the individual level will enhance the expertise of the field and lead to improved capacity for promoting minority health and addressing health disparities. Individuals identifying as racial and ethnic minorities, individuals with less privileged SES, and individuals with disabilities are often underrepresented in the biomedical research workforce. Diversity of the biomedical workforce can be improved through both individual-level programs and institutional infrastructure aimed at increasing domestic and international opportunities for individuals from populations experiencing health disparities, including underrepresented groups, to pursue scientific careers. A diverse biomedical workforce also ensures an assortment of ideas, perspectives, and backgrounds among the researchers and scientists contributing to breakthroughs in biomedical research.

Strategy 5.1: Support individual-level programs to train individuals from populations experiencing health disparities in the biomedical sciences.

Action Priority Areas

Starting Line:

• Link interested students and early-career scientists from diverse backgrounds, including underrepresented groups, to researchers across various research disciplines, both at NIH and in the extramural research community. NIH encourages these links to be established from pre-college or university stages through junior faculty stages to enhance the biomedical research training pipeline.
• Enable individuals from diverse backgrounds, including underrepresented groups, to achieve research career independence by providing networking events, best practices, and guidance on NIH grantsmanship and the peer review processes to facilitate (1) both short- and long-term success in NIH grant application submissions and (2) achievement of tenure in a suitable timeframe and reentry into the biomedical workforce. These resources may be offered at symposia and workshops, in NIH announcements, at scientific meetings, and on training websites.

Building Momentum:

• Take steps to enhance, renew, or expand NIH’s portfolio of scientific education and training opportunities for individuals from populations experiencing health disparities, including underrepresented groups, for all career stages from pre-college or university through tenure-track faculty.

Strategy 5.2: Support current and novel institution-level programs at institutions that have a historical and current commitment to educating underrepresented students and at less research-intensive institutions to enhance the ability of these programs to recruit, train, and retain a diverse biomedical research workforce.

Action Priority Areas

Starting Line:

• Support intramural NIH and extramural programs that enable institutions that have a historical and current commitment to educating underrepresented students and less research-intensive institutions to recruit, train, and retain scholars from populations experiencing health disparities, including underrepresented groups, in biomedical science across all career stages from undergraduate through junior faculty stages across various basic, clinical, and data science research domains.

Building Momentum:

• Take steps to enhance research and training environments at NIH and in the extramural research community for undergraduate, graduate, and medical institutions serving underrepresented students.

Strategy 5.3: Promote diversity-supporting recruiting programs at research-intensive institutions to expand the pool of applicants from health disparity groups underrepresented in biomedical research.

Action Priority Areas

Starting Line:

• Support recruiting efforts to interest individuals from underrepresented backgrounds to apply for opportunities to access and make contributions to NIH-supported research projects in research-intensive institutions. These opportunities will help them develop the essential skills and knowledge required to achieve their next level of career goals.

Building Momentum:

• Take steps to enhance diversity and inclusion efforts at research-intensive institutions to provide a more welcoming environment for prospective researchers from underrepresented backgrounds from pre-college or university stages through junior faculty stages.

Strategy 5.4: Support training and mentorship programs for minority health and health disparities researchers at all stages of career development and leadership development.

Action Priority Areas

Starting Line:

• Support programs to train and mentor researchers with expertise in minority health and health disparities from pre-college or university through early-stage investigator career stages.

Building Momentum:

• Take steps to enhance, renew, or expand NIH’s portfolio of scientific education, training, and mentoring opportunities for minority health and health disparity researchers from pre-college or university stages through established senior investigator careers.

Strategy 5.5: Incorporate development of specialized research skills into health disparities training programs, including core and emerging skills that are important for measuring, understanding, and addressing minority health and health disparities complexities.

Action Priority Areas

Starting Line:

• Support programs to provide researchers opportunities to enhance existing research capabilities or to acquire new research capabilities in MH- and HD-related science at the graduate student, junior scientist, and senior scientist levels of career stages.

Building Momentum:

• Take steps to enhance, renew, or add to NIH’s portfolio of intramural and extramural programs dedicated to the development of specialized research skills into minority health and health disparities research programs, including those fostering the development of scientists from medical, dental, veterinary, and other health science disciplines.

Goal 6: Strengthen the national capacity to conduct minority health and health disparities research

This goal promotes the expansion of the national capacity to conduct minority health and health disparities research. Creating and/or enhancing infrastructure to support novel and existing research approaches will facilitate further advancements in the fields of minority health and health disparities. Programs that address workforce preparedness at the institutional level will strengthen the capability of the fields to conduct novel and applied research.

Strategy 6.1: Support programs to enhance capacity for minority health and health disparities research at all institutions.

Action Priority Areas

Starting Line:

• Support relevant investigator-initiated research projects and multidisciplinary research centers in less research-intensive academic institutions—such as institutions that have a historical and current commitment to educating underrepresented students and primarily undergraduate institutions—that train significant numbers of individuals from populations experiencing health disparities.
• Support multidisciplinary centers and networks with local, regional, national, and international shared research resources such as databases, informatics cores, and biospecimen repositories that have meaningful inclusion to foster collaborative translational research relevant to U.S. health disparity populations.
• Build research capacity in community-based and tribal organizations that are positioned to conduct population health research on understudied racial and ethnic minority populations because of their trusted relationships with those populations.
• Support annual meetings, symposia, and research education programs across the United States to foster the development of a diverse cadre of faculty, students, and community partners who are committed to pursuing research on minority health and health disparities.

Building Momentum:

• Build community-based research hubs that serve as resource centers in order to foster collaborative, community-engaged research to address minority health and health disparities.
• Accelerate efforts to advance understanding of links between environmental exposures and health outcomes to promote environmental health literacy and support disease prevention efforts targeted to entire communities or regions at risk.
• Develop innovative ways to sustain community-based environmental health disparities research beyond individual grant cycles, and provide the means for community partners and citizen scientists to be more actively engaged with research.

Strategy 6.2: Develop and test methods to foster, coordinate, and promote the field of health disparities among research institutions and organizations.

Action Priority Areas

Starting Line:

• Disseminate the NIMHD Health Disparities Research Framework to inform and attract researchers from various scientific disciplines to explore the interplay between biological, behavioral, social, cultural, environmental, and clinical determinants of health.

Building Momentum:

• Partner with organizations that certify/license community health workers (CHWs) to standardize training of CHWs in intervention research, and assess the impact on health disparity intervention research, efficiency, safety, scientific rigor, and reproducibility.
• Expand NIH efforts to advance citizen science in the field of health disparities as a distinct research enterprise led by citizen scientists and community organizations, going beyond traditional approaches to community-engaged research led by academic institutions.

Goal 7: Ensure appropriate representation of minority and other populations experiencing health disparities in NIH-funded research

This goal promotes the inclusion of individuals from minority and other populations experiencing health disparities (e.g., SGMs, rural, and less privileged SES) in all federally funded research with human participation. Promoting inclusion in research requires attention throughout the research process, encompassing study design, implementation, and analyses. Using evidence-based strategies for outreach within minority communities and study design to enable subpopulation analyses, researchers can promote higher levels of representation among minority groups and SGMs to understand whether clinical advances are equally effective among all population groups. Appropriate inclusion of minorities may also support more meaningful insight into the etiology of minority health concerns and could inform more effective, culturally competent interventions in minority populations.

Strategy 7.1: Provide guidance, recommendations, and technical assistance for NIH-funded researchers in appropriate study design and best practices for recruitment to ensure compliance with laws, regulations, and policies regarding the inclusion of minorities and other populations experiencing health disparities in research.

Action Priority Areas

Starting Line:

• Support the development of technical assistance and best-research-practice centers to ensure that researchers have knowledge of proper study design and recruitment practices for including underrepresented populations experiencing health disparities in research.

Building Momentum:

• Develop general guidance for NIH researchers on how to best incorporate and include underrepresented populations experiencing health disparities in research.
• Expand local, regional, and national efforts to assess the impact of policies and policy changes on minority population health, and delineate specific mechanisms by which policies or policy changes mitigate or exacerbate systemic social, economic, and environmental disadvantages.

Strategy 7.2: Promote tracking of originally proposed recruitment strategies and objectives to ensure sufficient samples for analyses of subpopulation data.

Action Priority Areas

Starting Line:

• Educate and provide support to research centers regarding optimal recruitment strategies for inclusion of underrepresented populations experiencing health disparities in research.

Building Momentum:

• Develop Requests for Information (RFIs) to generate recommendations for improved tracking of recruitment strategies and objectives to ensure sufficient sample sizes for analyses of populations experiencing health disparities and related subpopulation data.

Strategy 7.3: Promote inclusion of minorities and other populations experiencing health disparities in big data sets, clinical research, and future big science initiatives.

Action Priority Areas

Starting Line:

• Support established and new research centers in the engagement of underserved health disparity communities for recruitment and retention in big data science research.

Building Momentum:

• Develop systematic monitoring mechanisms to assess successful recruitment and retention of populations experiencing health disparities in NIH-supported research.
• Strengthen national efforts to increase representation of populations experiencing health disparities in disease registries and public health surveillance systems to improve understanding and awareness of population health differences within and between groups and across geographic regions.

Page updated Jan. 12, 2024