Grant Details
Grant Number: |
3R01CA220254-02S1 Interpret this number |
Primary Investigator: |
Gibbons, Frederick |
Organization: |
University Of Connecticut Storrs |
Project Title: |
Contextual and Health Behavior Effects on Epigenetic Aging Among African Americans |
Fiscal Year: |
2019 |
Abstract
This is a request for research supplement funding for an active NCI grant in response to PA-18-906, i.e., a
request to support the research training of a new faculty investigator who is a member of an underrepresented
group. The supplement is to provide salary funding, and funding for travel to take advantage of additional
training opportunities for Dr. Sierra Carter, an outstanding African American female Scholar with exceptional
promise to the field of translational preventive health. Dr. Carter's expertise regarding depression in response
to chronic stressors, particularly discrimination experiences, and their role in forecasting longer-term negative
health outcomes will expand the current Family and Community Health Study (FACHS) project and the
investigative team. FACHS is the largest panel study of African American families (N ~900) conducted to date.
It has acquired a wealth of information about the health of these family members, including multiple biomarkers
of their health status and the “weathering” they have experienced. The opportunities afforded by the current
proposal to work with this project and this data set will provide Dr. Carter with a number of career development
possibilities. We outline a career development plan to expand Dr. Carter's current knowledge and skills in the
study of mechanisms underlying health and health behavior outcomes among young adult African Americans.
Through her graduate training, Dr. Carter has acquired a strong foundation in clinical and health research. She
received postdoctoral training in translational prevention research at Emory School of Medicine and is now an
Assistant Professor at Georgia State University. The current proposed research and training experiences build
directly upon her graduate and post-graduate research. The primary goal of this research supplement and
career development plan is to expand her research skill set to include new techniques in examining
methylation-based mechanisms linking social influences with health and health behavior, as well as expand
her skills in congruent statistical methods to handle methylation-based data. This new training will be a natural
extension of her current training in understanding the social origins of health disparities with a particular focus
on the impact of discrimination in childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood.
Publications
None. See parent grant details.