University of Michigan

D43 Postdoctoral Training Program

This D43 training grant focuses on the county-level and cross-country factors that contribute to non-communicable diseases (NCD) occurring in both Thailand and Indonesia. Tackling this escalating problem requires two important strategies: 1) identifying subnational variations in health outcomes and population groups; and 2) develop effective policies that address these variation and specific health needs and issues of impacted populations. The success of each of these rests on the development of evidence-based interventions and require appropriate research produced by a committed, local scientific community. The proposed D43 training plan builds on a previous successful D43 in which the Praboromarajchanok Institute for Health Workforce Development (PIHWD) in Thailand and the University of Michigan School of Nursing (UMSN) collaborated to train a post-doctoral fellows who received high quality training in analytical methods and research designs.  In this iteration,  UMSN continue collaborating with Thai and Indonesian partners expand NCD research in Thailand and Indonesia through postdoctoral training and other training-related capacity-building activities addressing the rise in NCDs.

Specific aims and activities for this five year program are to:

1) Prepare 10 scientists through a two-year postdoctoral training program to lead in expanding research addressing NCDs in Thailand and Indonesia;

2) Use interdisciplinary faculty teams to involve postdoctoral fellows in focused research areas. These teams will be organized around the following research themes, based on expertise and current research projects: a) Multidisciplinary approaches to regional participatory NCD research; b) Data science methods to understand country-level and cross-country factors contributing to NCDs; and c) Intervention strategies that address samples, design, and methods of NCD research studies.

3) Provide faculty and trainees with the country-level public health and policy context for their research development by leveraging Thailand’s TWGRP gains in NCDs through collaborations with public health, health system, and policy officials in Thailand and Indonesia