Image Source: ACHIEVE Training Program
NYU School of Global Public Health is part of a newly awarded Launching Future Leaders in Global Health (LAUNCH) research training grant, supported by the Fogarty International Center at the National Institutes for Health (NIH). The $5 million grant is led by Washington University in St. Louis with a consortium of 10 partner institutions in the U.S. and across the African continent.
Awarded every five years, the purpose of Fogarty’s flagship LAUNCH research training program is to “foster the next generation of global health scientists by providing trainees, early in their careers, a one-year mentored research training experience in global health at established biomedical and behavioral research institutions and project sites in low-and-middle-income countries (LMICs).” The program also aims at strengthening and expanding scientific collaborations between LMIC research institutions and project sites and U.S. partners.
The research training program is led by Washington University in St. Louis principal investigators Fred Ssewamala and Mary McKay. In addition to NYU, partner institutions include Boston College, University of Illinois-Chicago, Makerere University, University of Ghana, University of KwaZulu-Natal, University of Makeni, University of Nairobi, and University of Rwanda.
The training program is entitled “Addressing the Research Capacity Gap in Global Child and Adolescent Health Disparities Utilizing Implementation and Data Sciences among Vulnerable Populations in Resource-limited Settings” (ACHIEVE).
“THE ACHIEVE consortium brings together an outstanding group of researchers and mentors from 10 leading academic institutions and will provide the next generation of global health scientists with the perfect environment to forge scientific collaborations and relationships that will boost their career trajectories while allowing us all to advance toward our collective mission of reducing global child and adolescent health disparities in low-resource settings,” said Yesim Tozan, assistant professor of global health at NYU School of Global Public Health.
“NYU will have major contributions in data and health-decision science, health service innovation, environmental health, non-communicable diseases, and health economics expertise,” said Keng-Yen Huang, associate professor of population health and child and adolescent psychiatry at NYU Grossman School of Medicine.
Tozan and Huang lead the NYU part of the grant, with faculty from NYU GPH, NYU Langone, and NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing serving as faculty mentors.
ACHIEVE aims to increase dissemination and implementation (D&I) and data science research capacity among the next generation of global health investigators in order to address global health disparities affecting children, adolescents, and their adult caregivers. The program is designed for PhD students, medical doctors (MDs) and post-doctoral (PhD) trainees from diverse backgrounds in the U.S., as well as trainees (post-professional degree graduates) from six countries in Sub-Saharan Africa: Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, and Uganda. ACHIEVE also collaborates with other sites in Sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia, and Eastern Europe that share similar health challenges and disease burdens to further connect, engage, and advance health research across the world.
The first cohort of ten research trainees from the United States and across Africa is currently being recruited and the program will start in summer 2022. ACHIEVE trainees will spend one year at a research site in one of the partner countries. Over the course of the five-year program, ACHIEVE plans to provide research training to approximately 50 trainees.
For more information about ACHIEVE, visit https://sites.wustl.edu/achieve/.
Press Contact
Rachel Harrison
rachel.harrison@nyu.edu