Hill awarded grant from the NIMH
The National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH) has awarded Mandy J. Hill, DrPH, MPH, professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine and director of Population Health, with an R34 grant following the completion of her pilot program as a Ujima Program Scholar.
”Winning this R-level grant (on the third submission of this conceptual idea) as the Ujima Scholars Program ended was the perfect culmination and supreme testament of the tenacity and perseverance required to persistently move forward as an independent academic researcher,” Hill said. “The pathway to funding is not one that is often achieved alone. It is one of collective work and responsibility (i.e. Ujima) of scientific teams, champions, mentors, and communities.”
Hill joined the inaugural cohort of the University of California San Francisco Center for AIDS Prevention Studies (CAPS) Ujima Mentoring Program in 2022, which allowed her to leverage vlogging as an effective communication strategy to address HIV-related health inequities. At the genesis of vlogging as a potential sexual health intervention strategy, Hill and Sandra Coker, MD, a student at McGovern Medical School at the time, compared the vlogging strategy of a one-way monologue by a Black woman who is corrected by a clinician when sharing misinformation to a strategy using storytelling – a conversation between two Black women, which revealed a promising new path for behavioral interventions.
Following the success of the 3-year Ujima Scholars Program, Hill completed all aims of the pilot project and wrote an awarded NIH R-Level grant application with guidance from her mentors and the Ujima leadership. Additionally, she completed two mock reviews for two separate R-grant applications before being awarded the $727,000 R34 grant from the NIMH.
With the award, Hill will be joined by Angela Heads, PhD, associate professor, and Robert Suchting, PhD, associate professor in the Louis A. Faillace, MD, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, as well as Coker, assistant professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine, and Diane Santa Maria, DrPh, MSN, RN, ACRN, PHNA-BC, FSAHM, FAAN, dean, professor, in the Department of Research, Jane and Robert Cizik Distinguished Chair, and Huffington Foundation Endowed Chair in Nursing Education Leadership at the UTHealth Houston Cizik School of Nursing, as co-investigators from UTHealth Houston. Additionally, Liesl Nydegger, PhD, MPH, assistant professor in the Department of Health, Behavior, and Society at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, will also co-investigate.
The Population Health in Emergency Medicine Community Advisory Board (CAB) will be key advisors during the development, implementation, and evaluation of this project. CAB members include ShaTerra Johnson, LMSW, Marlisa Hardy, DrPH, MPH, Lakecia Pitts, MD, and Shadawn McCants, LPC-S, NCC.
For the clinical trial with healthcare providers and patients, the team will engage community partners from Avenue 360 Health and Wellness, Bee Busy Wellness Centers, and Allies in Hope as clinical sites. The social media aspect of the program will include consultations with Tristen Sutton of Sutton Consulting and Monisha Arya, MD, MPH, of Arya Communications. Qualitative study components and intervention development will involve collaborations with Shadawn McCants of Know & Live Counseling and Consulting, and vlogs will be co-developed by Rashid Tills of Right Time Solutions, which are continued collaborations from the Ujima pilot study.
As first author of a peer-reviewed manuscript, Hill led her Ujima pilot study team members with a publication of the Aim 1 pilot findings from the Ujima project to publication in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, garnering an impact factor of 7.2. This led to an invitation to Hill from the IJRPH to serve as a guest editor for a special issue in her field of expertise, Women’s Health and Reproductive Health.