Kellogg Foundation grants $10 million to continue Health Scholars Program

The University of North Carolina School of Public Health is one of eight national training sites for the program. The UNC Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, a research center with expertise in community research, administers the UNC grant.

W.K. Kellogg Foundation launched the Health Scholars Program, then called the Community-Based Public Health Initiative, in 1991. As of the 2007-2008 academic year, 52 postdoctoral students had received fellowships to train in communities around the country.

The goal of the Health Scholars Program is to reduce and eliminate health disparities by developing young leaders who participate in community-based participatory research (CBPR). CBPR is a collaborative approach through which research endeavors are chosen based on the needs of a community. It aims to combine academic study with social and policy initiatives that will improve health outcomes.

“This new grant expresses a significant vote of confidence by the Kellogg Foundation in the impact our program is making and its potential for the future,” said Toby Citrin, director of the national office of the community track program, based in Ann Arbor, Mich. “We look forward to working together as we enter this new and exciting phase,” Citrin said.

Two areas of study are offered by the program — a multidisciplinary track and a community track.

UNC serves as a training site for the latter. The new funding will allow one or two new scholars each year to receive a two-year fellowship in academic and community settings in North Carolina, developing skills in partnering, CBPR, and the application of research to policy development and advocacy.

Photograph of Dr. Eugenia Eng

Eugenia Eng, DrPH, professor in the department of health behavior and health education, is director of the UNC training site.

Kellogg Health Scholars at UNC may become involved in any number of community-based initiatives to promote individual wellness, community competence and social change.

These initiatives are part of cooperative projects between the School of Public Health and UNC research centers, including the Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research and the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Among these projects are:

• Carolina-Shaw University Partnership for the Elimination of Health Disparities, a Center of Excellence funded by the National Institutes of Health for innovation in health disparities research
• Program on Ethnicity, Culture and Health Outcomes, funded by the GlaxoSmith Kline Foundation to establish and support research partnerships with community-based organizations in the state
• Community Health Effects of Industrial Hog Operations, a series of community-driven studies funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences to provide data on environmental exposures and increase communities’ capability to improve public health conditions
• Center for Excellence on Overcoming Racial Health Disparity, funded by the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to measure interagency service coordination and examine its effect on racial disparities in rates of sexually transmitted disease
• Project SELF Improvement, funded by the Kate B. Reynolds Trust, partners three African American community-based organizations to develop and evaluate a multigenerational intervention to increase physical activity, improve nutrition, and prevent use of tobacco products
• Men as Navigators for Health, funded by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to investigate the impact of a multi-level intervention on male gender socialization and institutional racism on African American and Latino men’s preventive health behaviors
• Dismantling Racism Initiative, funded by the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation to implement and to address institutional racism by the Chatham County (N.C.) Health Department
• The BEAUTY Health Project, funded by the American Cancer Society to develop a cancer prevention intervention in African American beauty salons throughout North Carolina
• HOPEWORKS, funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as an obesity intervention for rural, low-income women in North Carolina
• The Greensboro CCARES Initiative, funded by the Moses Cone Wesley Long Foundation to understand and address the institutional factors that contribute to racial and ethnic disparities in cancer care outcomes in Greensboro, N.C.
• Community Cancer Network, funded by the National Cancer Institute to reduce disparities in prostate, breast and colorectal cancer among African Americans

Seven other universities also serve as training sites for the program: Harvard University, University of California at San Francisco and Berkeley, University of Pittsburgh and University of Texas at Houston (in the multidisciplinary track) and Johns Hopkins University, Morgan State University, and University of Michigan (in the community track). UNC was selected in 1997 as one of three original training sites.

More information about the program is available online at http://hpdp.unc.edu/ and www.kellogghealthscholars.org. Applications for the 2008-2009 program are due January 8, 2008.

School of Public Health contact: Ramona DuBose, director of communications, (919) 966-7467, ramona_dubose@unc.edu