Career Enhancement Core

CAREER ENHANCEMENT CORE: PROJECT SUMMARY The HOPE and CAIRHE 2gether (HC2) Career Enhancement Core (CEC) brings together the synergistic expertise, experience, and resources of HC2's participating centers and institutions: Center for Health Outcomes and Population Equity (HOPE), Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI), and the University of Utah (U of U), with the Center for American Indian and Rural Health Equity (CAIRHE) and Montana State University (MSU). Leveraging a multitude of well-established institutional training and career development resources at HCI, U of U, and MSU, along with HC2-specific programs, CEC will provide career enhancement training and mentored research opportunities for a cadre of early career investigators in community-engaged research to address cancer prevention in persistent poverty communities. These efforts include major initiatives to incorporate community-engaged research principles and skills into each Scholar's training including mentoring by community engagement specialists and community members. CEC will create synergy with Projects 1 and 2, Developmental Core, and Research and Methods Core by assisting Scholars in joining project teams, submitting and leading Pilot Projects, and by embedding them in the Research and Methods Core. CEC will link HC2 Scholars to community partners from the HC2 Network in collaboration with the Community Engagement Team housed in the Administrative Core to develop and conduct community-engaged research that is based on partner priorities and sensitive to cultural values. CEC will also leverage numerous programs and opportunities for ensuring that this next generation of investigators reflects the diversity of the persistent poverty communities in the Mountain West region. CEC Co-Leads, Dr. Kolawole Okuyemi (U of U) and Dr. Suzanne Held (MSU), bring distinct but complementary expertise to the CEC – national leadership in mentoring and in creating and maintaining a diverse biomedical research workforce (Okuyemi) and community-engaged research and training in rural and underserved settings (Held). CEC will foster positive advances in the science and outcomes around cancer health equity in areas of persistent poverty by ensuring that HC2 Scholars have a deep understanding of methods for conducting community-engaged research, knowledge of the social determinants of health, a commitment to conducting research that addresses reach through equitable implementation of cancer prevention interventions and implementation strategies, and the skills to translate knowledge into action, enabling HC2 Scholars to work collaboratively and respectfully.