Poster Presentation
Monday, November 5, 2007
10:30 AM - 11:45 AM
Monday, November 5, 2007
1:30 PM - 2:45 PM
Establishing a Center for Research Translation
Glenda N. Lindseth, PhD, RN, FADA, FAAN, College of Nursing, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND, USA
| Learning Objective #1: discuss the process used within one university to develop a Center for Research Translation. |
| Learning Objective #2: discuss clinical and translational research education and training issues confronting a rural university. |
PURPOSE: The goal of this project was to plan and create the Northern Plains Center for Research Translation (NPCRT), an interdisciplinary, integrated program of clinical and translational research at the University of North Dakota, that serves at-risk rural populations across the region.
BRIEF PROJECT DESCRIPTION: Our transformational vision was to plan an innovative, distributed, rural clinical and translational research model driven by the health needs of our people. Obesity had skyrocketed—62% of adults within North Dakota are now overweight or obese. Type 2 diabetes prevalence in our state has jumped 72% from 1994 to 2003. Neurodegenerative disorders (Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s) were becoming increasingly prevalent. American Indian youth in North Dakota die by suicide at a rate 429% higher than that for young whites. Development and dissemination of new interventions and "best practices" is critically needed to reduce morbidity and mortality from these diseases. In 2006, our university received a CTSA planning grant to help achieve our goal of developing, testing, and disseminating interventions and best practices that address these often-preventable disorders. These diseases disproportionately affect the most disadvantaged people in our region--American Indians, migrant farmworkers, the elderly rural poor, women and children. The proposed NPCRT will serve investigators at all stages of career development by offering graduate degrees in the clinical and translational sciences, and provide research training.
CONCLUSION: This northern plains clinical and translational research center will enable multidisciplinary researchers at our university to build research teams, comprised of different levels of investigators that will ultimately accomplish the university’s mission--to “serve the state, the country, and the world through teaching, research, creative activities, clinical practice and service; and to share a distinctive responsibility for the discovery, development, preservation, and dissemination of knowledge.”
This project was funded by the National Institutes of Health grant # 1 P20RR023‑01.