$20M grant to fund local health research
SAN DIEGO — San Diego State University plans to conduct two health-related research initiatives in the Valley with part of a federal $19.9 million grant the campus recently received.
The grant from the National Institutes of Health will go directly to the SDSU’s HealthLINK Center to further promote transdisciplinary research on health disparities throughout San Diego and Imperial counties.
One of the center’s research projects will examine the effectiveness of behavioral intervention plans to help reduce the use of medication for neck and back pain, said Guadalupe Xochitl Ayala, SDSU School of Public Health professor and one of the center’s principal investigators.
Another of the proposed projects includes identifying ways to enhance the capacity building of local public health stakeholders to keep the community engaged in health and wellness initiatives. As part of the planned research projects, SDSU has partnered with Clinicas de Salud del Pueblo.
The HealthLINK Center’s grant funding also presents the opportunity for a wider range of research and intervention opportunities in the Valley in the future, Ayala said.
“That is what we want to do together,” Ayala said. “It makes the case for all kinds of stuff.”
The behavioral intervention plan that seeks to reduce the use of medication in patients who suffer from neck and back pain is an evidence-based intervention model developed in another part of the country. Local stakeholders will attempt to adapt it to meet the needs of the Valley’s predominantly Latino population, Ayala said.
“That’s one of the things we are trying to do,” she said. “How can we take evidence that’s been developed in one population and transfer it to another?”
The transdisciplinary center will also undertake a variety of health-related research projects whose results may prompt further research and intervention projects.
Such instances are referred to as “research translation,” Ayala said, and highlight how research findings by one group of investigators may drive additional research by another of the center’s participating investigators.
“There’s a lot of research translation opportunities along the way,” she said. “It depends on where the translation needs to happen.”
Additional research opportunities for the center may also result from the health care industry’s widespread adoption of electronic medical records, Ayala said.
The potential to review those records, without having any need to determine patients’ identities, to research local health conditions and outcomes presents another exciting research opportunity, Ayala said.
The campus’ recent $19.9 million NIH grant comes two years after the NIH’s National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities awarded a five-year $10 million endowment to the university in 2016 to help establish the HealthLINK Center, the university reported.
The $10 million endowment is restricted from being spent on faculty and development and has to be expended on equipment or infrastructure for the HealthLINK Center, Ayala said. To date, the campus has received about $4 million of that endowment, she said.
The latest $19.9 million award is the largest NIH grant ever awarded to SDSU, and the second largest in university history, the university reported.
The SDSU HealthLINK (Leveraging Infrastructure, Networks and Knowledge to reduce health disparities) Center builds collaborative partnerships between the university and community health entities and enhances research infrastructure at the university, and improving the well-being of the region’s most underserved populations, an SDSU press release stated.
In the San Diego region, the university has partnered with the county Health and Human Services Agency as well as the Family Health Centers of San Diego as part of its efforts.