American Indian and Alaska Native Programs

The Center on Native Elder Health Disparities (CNEHD)

Native Investigator Development Core

Few studies of the health of Native elders have been conducted by, or include, American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) researchers. In fact, a recent NIH-sponsored conference on AI training needs reported that only 14 of 35,000 Principal Investigators are AI/AN. The focus of the Native Investigator Development Core is to augment the skills and capabilities of minority researchers. Thus this core seeks:

  1. to increase the number of AI/AN professionals capable of conducting research in areas of high priority among Native elders, in particular those that reduce the minority/non-minority differential in health status, access to needed care, and the consequences thereof;

  2. to establish and maintain learning and mentoring relationships between established researchers and previously unfunded AI/AN investigators;
    3. to improve the methodological skills of such investigators by participation in a variety of activities including secondary data analyses and Pilot Studies intended to reduce health status and access differentials between Native elders and their non-Native counterparts in the general population; and

  3. to employ their research activities as the basis for preparing independent investigator-initiated awards led by AI/AN researchers.

For more information about the Center on Native Elder Health Disparities E-Mail: Timothy.Noe@ucdenver.edu