PolicyLab Announces Community Partnerships in Research Program Awardees

PolicyLab announced the Community Partnerships in Research Program Year Two awardees.

The program launched in 2022 to fund community-engaged research pilot grants, build capacity at CHOP for community-academic partnered research, and support the next generation of health equity researchers in the use of community-based research methods and principles.

This is achieved through two grant types: the Joint Pilot Project Awards and Partnership Development Award.

Joint Pilot Project Awards are geared towards established community-academic partnerships who seek funds for a well-defined research project that may produce preliminary data or programs for future competitive grant applications.

Building Communication Strategies Among Black Fathers and Their Youth: A Pilot Study to Develop and Disseminate Strength-based Parent-Teen Resources

Partnership: Jillian Lucas Baker, DrPH, EdM, Craig-Dalsimer Division of Adolescent Medicine Center for Parent and Teen Communication at CHOP, and Joel Austin, Daddy University, Inc.
Project description: The team plans to examine the barriers and facilitators for Black fathers' communication with their teens ages 12-17 about coping strategies for discrimination, racism, and mental health needs via focus groups and survey administration. They will then use these findings to develop and test the effectiveness of a parenting intervention for Black fathers in Philadelphia.

Adaptation of the Students Talking About Relationships (STAR) Curriculum for LGBTQI Youth

Partnership: Marné Castillo, PhD, MEd, faculty scholar at PolicyLab and director of the Adolescent Initiative at CHOP, Bevin Gwiazdowski, MSW, clinical research project manager for PolicyLab and the Adolescent Initiative at CHOP, and Sydney Rolle-Stern, MPH, Lutheran Settlement House
Project description: The team seeks to address interpersonal violence among LGBTQI adolescents and young adults through the application of the ADAPT framework to modify and test the evidence-based intervention, Students Talking About Relationships, using implementation and qualitative research methods. The award is sponsored in partnership with the CHOP Clinical and Translational Research Award program, which aims to provide resources, environment, operations, and training to support and promote high-quality clinical and translational research.

A Multimodal Approach to Exploring the Adultification of Black Girls and the Building of Community-Centered Dissemination of Findings

Partnership: Daniela Brissett, MD, and Nadia Dowshen, MD, MSHP, PolicyLab and the Craig-Dalsimer Division of Adolescent Medicine at CHOP, and Tawanna Jones, EdD, from We [R.E.I.G.N: Rooting, Empowering, and Inspiring a Girl's Nation
Project description: The team aims to understand the impact of adultification on the medical and mental health outcomes of adolescents in an urban setting. More specifically, they will gather youth and their families' perspectives utilizing semi-structured qualitative interviews and innovative qualitative arts-based methods, such as photo-elicitation exercises, to identify the current experiences and potential solutions.

Partnership Development Awards provide seed funding to support activities related to the development of new or emerging community-academic research partnerships.

Community Guided Development of an Interprofessional Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) Equity Champion Team and Bias Mitigation Strategies

Partnership: Diana Montoya-Williams, MD, MSHP, PolicyLab and Division of Neonatology at CHOP, and Jenné Johns, MPH, Once Upon a Preemie, Inc.
Project description: The team aims to form a community- and family-engaged interdisciplinary team of NICU Equity Champions who will collaboratively build a multi-institutional research agenda focused on mitigating the impact of implicit bias and racism in the CHOP and Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania NICUs.

Visit PolicyLab for more information about the program.