T32 Training Grant

Applicants to the Ph.D. program have the opportunity to apply for a unique funding opportunity: the training program on Complexity: Innovations for promoting health and safety (CIHPS).

Applicants selected will receive a third year of funding if offered admission to the Ph.D. program.

Training program on Complexity: Innovations for promoting health and safety

You are invited to apply to become a fellow for the Complexity: Innovations for Promoting Health and Safety (CIPHS) training program for Ph.D. students, funded by the National Institute of Nursing Research (T32).

To qualify for this prestigious training program, applicants must be

  1. U.S. citizens, a noncitizen national of the U.S., or have been lawfully admitted as a permanent resident in the U.S
  2. Applying for Fall 2020 admission to the Ph.D. program at the University of Michigan School of Nursing.

The goal of the training program is to educate Ph.D. students to become independent scientists in promoting health and safety across the wellness-illness continuum through development and testing of interventions for a specified population.

Applicants selected for the CIPHS training program will receive three years of funding in the form of tuition support, health insurance, and a monthly stipend.

The CIPHS training program is designed for students to focus on one of the following objectives:

  • Investigate the complex array of personal, social, and environmental factors that impact the health and safety of individuals and populations across the wellness-illness continuum to inform the design and testing of interventions.
  • Design and test innovative approaches to promote health and safety, and prevent development of chronic conditions at the individual and population levels.
  • Design and test innovative approaches to promote health and safety among those with chronic conditions to enable them to live well with chronic illness.

Focus areas

There are two focus areas of the CIPHS training program: promoting health through prevention and safety and promoting health in the context of chronic conditions to facilitate living well with chronic illness.

Promoting health through prevention and safety

Examples include but are not limited to:

  • Women’s health such as urinary continence, reproductive health, prevention of maternal and neonatal mortality;
  • Sexual health such as HIV prevention and adolescent health;
  • Workers’ health and safety such as prevention of noise-induced hearing loss among farm operators and their families, and prevention of healthcare workers’ exposure to toxic chemotherapeutic agents in ambulatory cancer treatment settings;
  • Communication and use of technology among different types of healthcare providers (e.g. nurses, physicians) that impact patient safety, patient outcomes and potential adverse healthcare events associated with miscommunication;
  • Prevention of injury (e.g. falls) in older adults;
  • Promoting health and reducing health inequality among vulnerable and community-based populations,
  • Implementation of research-based interventions to promote health and safety (implementation science).

Promoting health in the context of chronic conditions to facilitate living well with chronic illness 

Examples include but are not limited to

  • Investigating complex mechanisms of symptoms experienced by cancer survivors, testing bio-behavioral interventions to promote health in those with cancer, and improving sexual health in women with a history of breast and gynecologic cancer;
  • Testing interventions to address painful chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN) and thereby improve quality of life;
  • Investigating factors that influence physical activity, and quality of life in people with chronic lung disease and testing the effects of an exercise intervention to promote health and increase physical activity in this population;
  • Testing the effectiveness of a psycho-education intervention for women with abuse-related post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to promote healthy pregnancies and prevent maltreatment of infants and children;
  • Improving quality of life in those with chronic illness, and
  • Applying innovative analytic methods to large nationally available data to investigate back pain.

Application procedures

In addition to the Ph.D. program application, those interested in the CIPHS training program need to submit a three page narrative that:

  1. Describes their research interests in promoting health and safety 
  2. Describes their career goals for science promoting health and safety 
  3. Discusses possible faculty mentors at UMSN.

In preparing their narrative, applicants should select one of the two focus areas - promoting health through prevention and safety or promoting health in the context of chronic conditions - and then select a specific research interest within the selected focus area such as women's health, worker health and safety, symptoms in cancer survivors, promoting safety among older adults, or improving quality of life in people with chronic lung disease. Note: these are only examples; you may select another research interest within the focus area.

Questions about this funding opportunity should be directed to Dr. Marita Titler or Dr. Marjorie McCullagh.

Deadline

All materials must be submitted with the Rackham Graduate School application by the School of Nursing Ph.D. application deadline. Applicants can upload the supporting materials for these funding opportunities on page 9 of the application. Please contact the Office of Admissions and Records at UMSN-GradAdmissions@med.umich.edu or 734-763-5985 if you have questions.