Center for Population Health Research

Project Summary/Abstract Montana is one of the most rural states in the country, and rural populations suffer disproportionately from several adverse health outcomes. The Center for Population Health Research’s (CPHR) mission is to foster investigator-initiated research aimed at improving population health in rural settings. Our Phase I Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) achieves this by supporting funded research projects and providing investigators with funded project support, mentoring, and two research support cores. The CPHR Data and Modeling (DM) Core provides researchers with statistical and environmental modeling expertise, support for acquisition of secondary patient health and related data, and access to a high-performance computing environment. The CPHR Intervention Support (IS) Core provides expertise and services for primary data collection, including survey administration and qualitative method design, an opportunity that is now available to researchers in this post-pandemic environment. Our core of early career investigators has recently identified a need for support to enhance field-based primary data collection. CPHR investigators cover a variety of clinical research topics, but one commonality across our center is understanding disease risk determinants in order to inform, develop, and test interventions in rural communities. Thus, the CPHR early career investigators that are engaging with rural patients and populations require the ability to mobilize recruitment, data gathering, and community engagement in the field. Through this administrative supplement for equipment purchases application (NOT-GM-24-021), we will be able to acquire and operationalize a mobile clinical laboratory to support the identified needs of CPHR early career investigators and other CPHR-affiliated researchers. The research capabilities supported by this mobile laboratory and related components will include field-based community outreach, capture of clinical and environmental measures, patient/participant clinical consultation, collection of biomonitoring data, secure and private administration of survey instruments, and facilitation of qualitative data collection. By integrating this equipment and capability with our CPHR IS Core we will be able to ensure sustainability for equipment operations through our established user charges structure. The addition of these capabilities to our existing research mentorship and research support cores will serve as a force multiplier for ensuring that our current and future investigators are able to develop and sustain impactful independent research careers.