CORAL GABLES, Fla.  (October 1, 2014)—The National Institutes of Health/National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities has awarded the School of Nursing and Health Studies more than $1 million over five years to educate a new generation of health disparities scientists.

The grant will support a training program to identify promising minority undergraduate students in nursing, public health, and health sciences and provide them with eight-week global research training experiences at global partner institutions in Chile, the Dominican Republic, Spain, and Australia. Each participating student will be paired with a faculty mentor drawn from one of five institutions of higher healthcare education in the four participating countries. The foreign mentors represent an exceptional group of educators and scientists from medicine, nursing, public health, and psychology.

Funded under the NIMHD’s Minority Health and Health Disparities International Research Training (MHIRT) mechanism, the initiative’s ultimate goal is to help create a culturally competent healthcare workforce. This is crucial because of the current dearth of Hispanic, black, and Native American researchers in health professions.

“The Global Health Disparities Research Experience will give undergraduates from underrepresented populations exciting opportunities to assist internationally renowned researchers with their grant projects,” said Rosa Gonzalez-Guarda, the study’s principal investigator. “It will enable these students to see the concepts they are learning in class come alive, and expose them to how science is conducted in different cultures and with populations other than their own. Most importantly, it will allow them to see themselves as tomorrow’s health disparities scientists.”

Dean Nilda (Nena) Peragallo said the School of Nursing and Health Studies is proud that NIH/NIMHD’s support allows the school to engage future researchers at the undergraduate level. “It is central to the mission of our school to help talented students from diverse backgrounds advance within the education and research pipeline,” she said. “We are developing the scientists whose work will decrease and ultimately eliminate health disparities.”