InCHIP & HRI Pilot Studies in Health Justice

This opportunity represents a collaboration between InCHIP and the Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute. This award provides up to $20,000 for one pilot study conducted by UConn Faculty in the areas of social justice, human rights, and health equity. Eligible projects may employ a qualitative, quantitative, or mixed-methods approach. Projects that integrate arts- or narrative-based approaches will also be eligible. Pilot projects funded through this mechanism should act as a preliminary stage that informs a proposal for external funding.

Conceptually, social justice, human rights, and health equity are highly interrelated. Below we provide applicants definitions of each construct to clarify our intent with this opportunity below. Health research rooted in a health equity, human rights, and/or social justice approach confronts inequities associated with race/ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, disability status, residence in underserved areas, low socioeconomic status, and/or other forms of inequity, typically using an intersectional approach. Studies in this area foreground the voices, experiences, and perspectives of individuals and communities representing the population of interest whether empirically, through research collaboration, or in other ways.

Eligibility Criteria & Requirements

The Principal Investigator (PI) must have an advanced degree (e.g., PhD, MD, PharmD), have an eligible faculty appointment at UConn Storrs, UConn Health, or one of the regional campuses, and be eligible to submit external grants through InCHIP or UConn Health. To view the complete list of faculty eligible to act as a PI, please see this list from the OVPR.
Leadership Roles: While research teams can include students, post docs, faculty from other institutions and other external collaborators, our goal is to support interdisciplinary teams led by UConn faculty. For this reason, team leaders should be UConn faculty with continuing appointments who meet the OVPR’s PI criteria (see above).
Protection of Human Subjects and Animals: Investigators are expected to receive approval from the IRB for human subjects or from IACUC for animal model studies before beginning their study.

Awardees will be required to submit a brief progress report after 6 months, a final report at the conclusion of the project or award period, and periodic check-ins over the following 5 years to track external grant applications/awards stemming from the seed grant. Changes to the project’s objectives, PIs, and budget will require prior approval from InCHIP staff.

Detailed awardee instructions/requirements will be distributed to seed grant winners when they are notified of the award decisions. All awardee requirements described above are subject to change in accordance with updated institutional procedures (e.g., routing requirements).

InCHIP invites Seed Grant proposals with budgets up to $20,000. The length of the award is two years after award.

Allowable Costs:

Personnel who are essential for conducting the research project, such as graduate research assistants and student labor.
Individuals who are not on the regular state payroll (i.e., consultants and other off-campus assistance) may be hired to perform special research-related tasks as needed.
Resources that require fee-for-services within UConn.
Participant incentives for recruitment or study participation.
Out-of-state travel that is necessary to conduct the research.
Equipment necessary for conducting the research (“equipment” is defined as an article of tangible, non-expendable personal property that costs $5,000 or more).
Project supplies, including drugs and services.
Other specifically authorized expenses essential for carrying out the project.

Not-Allowable Costs:

The salary of any Principal Investigator, Co-Investigator, or other faculty member who has an appointment at UConn Storrs, UConn Health, or any of the UConn campuses. This includes Connecticut Children’s faculty with joint appointments.
Living expenses.
Laptops or desktop computers, unless used exclusively for the project and not for any other activities.
Service/maintenance contracts on equipment.
Laboratory renovations or other infrastructure renovations.
Institutional and/or individual memberships in professional organizations.
Travel to professional meetings to present the results of the research, or any conference attendance.
Indirect costs, including clerical and administrative personnel salaries.
Costs associated with the publication of results of the research, such as the purchase of reprints.
Investigator training costs, including tuition.

Evaluation Criteria

Innovation: Is this a new research area, project, or collaboration? Priority is placed on new ideas for projects that involve cross-department, cross-college, and/or cross-campus (interdisciplinary) connections among UConn faculty.
Significance: Does the proposed project make a significant difference to the field and/or human health? What problem does the proposed study solve? Or what gap in knowledge does it fill?
Does the proposal directly approach health related issues and outcomes from a human rights, social justice, and/or health equity perspective?
Are the goals of the project clear and in alignment with the planned activities? Proposals should have a well-articulated plan of activities that include appropriate literature review, clear objectives, and a detailed methodology.
How diverse are the collaborators? Teams should ideally be comprised of investigators who range in discipline, seniority, and experience.
Does the team have a timeline and plan for achieving their goals? Proposals must include a specific product (e.g., external grant proposal) and a timeline for its attainment.
To what extent is the proposal aligned with the goals of the FOA (see description above)?
Does the proposal provide evidence for access to the population of interest? For example, building partnerships with community organizations, clinics, or hospitals can demonstrate points of access. Likewise, for studies using secondary data analysis having a description of how the team will gain access to the data is vital.

Review: In addition to being reviewed by content experts, each proposal will be reviewed by representatives from both HRI and InCHIP to ensure that the projects align with the goals of the mechanism.

Questions about your proposal? Please email Director of Research Training and Development, Grace Morris at grace.morris@uconn.edu or call 860-486-5393.

Social Justice and Health: Social justice emphasizes the need for just treatment, equal social status among people, and fairness in the distribution of rights, resources, and opportunities throughout society. Social and structural conditions directly or indirectly impact individuals' health. Therefore, a social justice approach to health emphasizes how rights, resources, and opportunities affect health and how health and healthcare are components of the broader dialogue around social justice, equality, and equity.

Human Rights and Health: All humans have a right to health within the human rights framework. The right to health asserts that all humans are entitled to services and freedoms that enable them to attain the highest attainable mental and physical well-being and health status.

Health Equity: Health inequities are population-level health differences in health outcomes that cannot be attributed to biology alone and therefore are unfair and unjust, in accordance with "internationally recognized ethical and human rights principles" (Braverman 2011). Health equity is a goal that seeks to eliminate health disparities and facilitate the ability for all individuals and communities to have equal opportunity to live long, healthy, and productive lives (NIMHD).

Projects supported through this program may lead to external applications to a range of external funders and frameworks, including the following:

NIH: Many institutes fund work in this space, including NINR, NIMHD, NICHD, and NHLBI. NIMHD takes a multilevel approach to health disparities that may apply to applicants.
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation: Consistently offers funding in this space via their Culture of Health approach.
The American Center for Health Justice has a helpful list of ongoing funding opportunities in this space.
CDC: Healthy People 2030 takes a data-driven approach to address federal U.S. objectives for improving health disparities. This site is beneficial for getting a recent picture of the state of health equity in the U.S.
UN: The United Nations provides information and data and drives health and human rights initiatives worldwide.

Potential Research Topics include but are not limited to studies that:

Research that explores and addresses contextual barriers that disparately impact health outcomes, such as feeling safe in one’s neighborhood or having access to transportation, clean air, or healthy food.
Research that explores the ways cultural, ideological, or social constructs and beliefs act as barriers, facilitators, or protective factors for communities that experience health disparities.
Research that emphasizes improving health literacy, access to primary healthcare, or access to or quality of healthcare more broadly.
Research that explores or measures the disparate impacts of policy on health outcomes (and the variables associated with health outcomes) across different populations.
Projects that emphasize training and developing clinical providers and students to be better advocates.
Research that explores human rights mobilization, social justice, or social movement-based approaches toward policy change around health issues such as vaccine policies, reproductive healthcare, or violence prevention.
Work that explores the relationship between public institutions, such as education or housing, as spaces of intervention, prevention, or resource allocation that could better serve specific populations.
Research that addresses environmental injustice and fosters resilience through identifying and engaging key stakeholders and disciplines in health equity-related research on climate change.
Projects that work toward developing community-based interventions and strategies that address structural racism and discrimination's impact on health.

Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute

Eligibility Criteria & Requirements

Allowable and Non-Allowable Costs

How to Apply

Evaluation Criteria

Additional Information

Definitions

External Funders

Potential Research Topics