The origins and design of the Dental Pipeline program. (25/145)

Funded by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the California Endowment and with student financial aid from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the primary goal of the Pipeline, Profession, and Practice: Community-Based Dental Education program is to reduce disparities in access to dental care. In a national competition, fifteen dental schools were selected to participate. By the final year (2007) of the five-year project, the schools are expected to achieve three objectives: 1) increase the time (sixty days/year) that senior students and residents spend in patient-centered community clinics and practices treating underserved populations; 2) provide didactic and clinical courses for students and residents that prepare them for their community experiences; and 3) recruit more underrepresented minority and low-income students. The national program office that directs the project is located at Columbia University, and a national advisory committee oversees the program for the sponsoring organizations. The challenge is to demonstrate that the Pipeline objectives are achievable and that the program is sustainable without external support.  (+info)

Pipeline, profession, and practice program: evaluating change in dental education. (26/145)

This article describes the conceptual and analytical framework that will be used to assess the effectiveness of the Pipeline, Profession, and Practice: Community-Based Dental Education Program. The evaluation will use a mixed method qualitative and quantitative data collection, analysis, and triangulation. Baseline measures are reported using data from the 2003 ADEA survey of dental school seniors. Baseline measures show the dental schools are confronting a major recruitment challenge that will require short and long pipeline efforts to attract and retain underrepresented and low-income (URM/LI) persons. Gaps were found between the perceptions of URM and non-URM students in the adequacy of the curricula. The majority of all seniors described the current extramural clinical rotations as positive experiences, but URMs were more likely to report the experience improved their ability to care for diverse groups.  (+info)

A National Sleep Foundation's conference summary: the National Summit to Prevent Drowsy Driving and a new call to action. (27/145)

On November 20-21, 2002, the National Sleep Foundation (NSF), a U.S.-based non-profit organization, and a coalition of other organizations, federal agencies and corporations convened a National Summit to Prevent Drowsy Driving at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC. The Summit brought together experts in the fields of transportation, safety and health, sleep research, and communications as well as advocates to assist in the creation of a comprehensive national agenda to increase awareness about the dangers of drowsy driving. Recommendations from the Summit formed the basis of post-summit activities, including the development of a new Web site (www.drowsydriving.org) dedicated to the prevention of driver fatigue and a report, the National Action Plan to Prevent Drowsy Driving, which describes a series of action items for national, state and local initiatives in the areas of research, public policy, and educational programs.  (+info)

Leveraging the power of the media to combat HIV/AIDS. (28/145)

Improving HIV/AIDS prevention efforts, especially those focused on young people, is a key challenge in the fight against the pandemic. Since the mid-1990s the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation has partnered with U.S.-based media companies on comprehensive HIV/AIDS campaigns. This paper outlines the unique public education model that it is using, and how Kaiser is expanding this work globally by working with some of the largest media companies in the world to undertake new initiatives in Russia and India.  (+info)

The medical science research and development supported by the Korea Science and Engineering Foundation. (29/145)

This study examined ways of promoting research in the medical sciences by evaluating trends in research funding, and the present status of research funding by the Korea Science and Engineering Foundation (KOSEF). This study analyzed statistics from KOSEF from 1978 to 2003 to examine support for research. In medical science field, group-based programs receive more funding than do individual-based programs. The proportion of research funds allocated to the medical sciences has increased markedly each year. Researchers in the medical sciences have submitted more articles to Science Citation Index (SCI) journals than to non-SCI journals, relative to other fields. Researchers supported by the Mission-Oriented Basic Grants program have published the majority of these papers, followed by those supported by the Programs for Leading Scientists, Regional Scientists, Leading Women Scientists, Young Scientists, and Promising Women Scientists, in that order. Funding by KOSEF reflects many decades of government support for research and development, the development and maintenance of necessary infrastructure, and the education and training of medical scientists.  (+info)

Field building: lessons from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's anthology series. (30/145)

As editors of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's (RWJF's) anthology series, we have examined the entire range of the foundation's grant making since 1972. We found that the RWJF has enjoyed considerable success in building fields--from nurse practitioners to tobacco control to end-of-life care. The RWJF has done this by shaping fields as they were emerging, by adopting a wide-ranging "bear hug" approach, and by staying the course. The lessons from the RWJF's field-building efforts are relevant for both large and small foundations: Small funders can develop strategic plans aimed at building fields in their home state or locality.  (+info)

US biomedical research under siege. (31/145)

The stagnation of biomedical research funding in the US is placing great pressure on the research enterprise. It is time to consider some radical solutions.  (+info)

Thinking big about global health. (32/145)

The Gates Foundation is funding high-risk research into new ways to improve health in developing countries, but ensuring that the fruits of these studies reach the people who need them most may be the biggest challenge of all.  (+info)