UCSF Research in Implementation Science for Equity (RISE)

ABSTRACT/SUMMARY There is a well-known gap between what we know can optimize health and healthcare and what happens in everyday practice. Implementation science (ImS) holds promise for generating new knowledge to close this gap. ImS is especially important for addressing health inequities which result, in part, from failure to deliver evidence-based practices to marginalized and minoritized racial and ethnic groups. Implementation science (ImS) is a branch of research that focuses on the “use of strategies to adopt and integrate evidence-based health interventions and change practice patterns within specific settings.”1 Appropriate training of junior faculty from underrepresented minority (URM) backgrounds in ImS may uniquely position them to pursue innovative research of interest to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) and to launch successful careers as independent investigators. The UCSF Research in Implementation Science for Equity (RISE) program is an innovative research and career development program grounded in social cognitive career theory that integrates mentoring and targeted social support with concrete knowledge and skill building. In particular, RISE has provided didactic training, research experiences, and on-going research mentoring in ImS for URM junior faculty focused on cardiovascular or pulmonary research, leveraging the considerable expertise in ImS training at UCSF. These research skills building activities focused on ImS are paired with an innovative career development program that includes critical activities of importance for this career stage (including manuscript and grant writing). The training program is led and delivered by successful, NIH-funded investigators and other outstanding researchers in cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases at UCSF, and by former RISE scholars. Through this unique combination, RISE and RISE-2 have provided 75 URM junior faculty with tangible methodological and academic skills to enhance their own research and compete successfully for NIH resources, while also developing a strong network of junior faculty conducting research of relevance to the NHLBI. The proposed RISE-3 builds on the success of RISE and RISE-2 and will add several new components: 1) expansion of the ImS program curriculum to include content on how to link ImS and health equity frameworks for designing interventions, collecting data, and assessing outcomes; 2) additional CIP (Careers in Progress) sessions in the monthly longitudinal curriculum; 3) enhanced opportunities for peer support, mentoring, and networking, including connecting RISE-3 scholars to established ImS investigators and to the robust RISE alumni network.