Project Overview
This project will develop an innovative Transdisciplinary Research, Equity and Engagement Center for Advancing Behavioral Health (TREE Center). This will expand on and leverage the knowledge, research capacities and cross-sectoral collaborations established by the former NM CARES Health Disparities Center (P20 MD004811, R. Williams, PI). We will use these strengths to specifically target improvement of behavioral health disparities for socioeconomically disadvantaged and underserved rural populations with a southwest regional focus on American Indian/Alaska Natives (AI/ANs) and Latinos in New Mexico.
The goal of this project is to highlight the social determinants of behavioral health, including Adverse Childhood Experiences, historical trauma, and intersectional effects of poverty and discrimination to improve conditions and outcomes related to youth suicide, alcohol and drug misuse, depression, and access to behavioral health services.
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Research Aims
The four aims of the TREE Center are to:
1) Implement a co-leadership model in order to promote transdisciplinary, multi-level intervention research that will advance the knowledge and science to improve behavioral health outcomes;
2) Operationalize collaborative integration of theories, study design, and analysis into multi-level interventions that improve behavioral health outcomes due to an the interplay of biological, behavioral, physical environment, health care system, economic, and political forces in our representative rural, AI/AN, Latino and other partner communities;
3) Expand the development of a diverse scientific workforce by training new and early stage under-represented minority investigators in a transdisciplinary context, to conduct community engaged, multi- level intervention behavioral health research; and
4) Cultivate equitable collaborations with community and tribal stakeholders regionally and nationally in order to translate and co-disseminate transdisciplinary research evidence into practice and policy.
The combined human, intellectual and relational resources and institutional commitments of Tree Center office space, travel funding for engaging with the Community Scientific Advisory Committee and dedicated mentoring of senior faculty will strengthen our impact in training the next generation of under-represented minorities and advancing the behavioral health of diverse populations in the southwest.