Here is this week’s news of grants and gifts that may be of particular interest to women in higher education.
The University of New Hampshire is launching a new program to prepare health care practitioners in remote areas of the state to offer care to pregnant women with substance abuse problems. The project is financed through a grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Unlike other telemedicine programs, this effort does not involve physicians in a central location taking care of patients in remote areas. Rather the program trains local practitioners in remote areas to give personal face-to-face care to patients in these locations.
The University of Illinois at Chicago received a three-year, $1,170,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Defense for research on treatment for triple-negative breast cancer, one of the most lethal forms of the disease. About 40,000 women each year are diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer.
The University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis received a $418,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health to conduct research on yeast infections that affect nearly 75 percent of all women during their lifetimes. The research will aim to develop compounds to reduce inflammation that would be used in conjunction with anti-fungal therapies.
Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton received a $182,812 grant from the National Institutes of Health to conduct research on racial disparities in breast cancer. The research, under the direction of Tarsha Jones, an assistant professor in the College of Nursing at Florida Atlantic University, will examine racial and ethnic disparities in the use of genetic testing among young breast cancer survivors. Dr. Jones is a graduate of Seton Hall University in New Jersey. She earned a master’s degree in community and public health nursing from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and a Ph.D. in nursing from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh.
Michigan State University received a grant from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services to boost services for victims of sexual assault on campus. The funds will allow the university to hire two therapists and two victim advocates to its staff. More than 600 students at the university sought help through the university’s Sexual Assault Program in 2017.