The nation, including the state of Arizona with a population that is 38.5% Latino and Native American, suffers from tremendous health disparities contributed to, in part, by the absence of a diverse biomedical research and healthcare workforce. Never has there been a greater need for health equity that needs to be addressed by a diverse research workforce and infrastructure than during and following the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) pandemic during which time our minority communities were disproportionately affected by the pandemic due to respiratory failure and pulmonary-sleep manifestations of post-acute sequelae of COVID (PASC). In this renewal application, we propose to build upon our past successes with innovative approaches and best practices to advance research education tailored for qualified PRIDE trainees. The overarching goal of our program is to provide advanced research training experiences and long-term mentoring in an interprofessional environment to qualified candidates -- junior faculty and transitioning postdoctoral scientists from diverse backgrounds, including those from groups that are underrepresented in the biomedical sciences -- who are committed to investigating the factors responsible for differences in health among populations as they pertain to lung, sleep-related breathing disorders, and the consequences of the pandemic to these systems. Our proposal is to redesign, organize, and implement a NHLBI mission-focused Summer Institute program that will support AiRE and program faculty to nationally recruit eligible and highly-qualified individuals in order to provide advanced training experiences and long-term mentoring that will enable them to develop a research program and work with their home institution to obtain NIH funding and develop their career and gain leadership skills. The research training experiences will be tailored to the trainee and designed to enhance their research skills, experiences, and knowledge base in lung and sleep-related breathing disorders research with attention to the specific scientific area of infectious and immunobiological consequences of the pandemic on lung and sleep using cross-cutting methodological approaches. The broader goal of the AiRE training program is to create a rigorous interprofessional research training program that attracts highly-qualified early career faculty and transitioning post-doctoral scientists, offering them the academic and collaborative research experience that supports a successful and productive career in the study of disparities in lung, sleep-related breathing disorders, and their pandemic-related consequences. The impact would be to engender a diverse biomedical research workforce in lung, sleep, and their pandemic-related consequences that can help us better understand health disparities and promote health equity.

Project Narrative. Existence of disparities in health in disadvantaged populations in the country is a major problem. The lack of sufficient diverse representation among researchers and scientists who work on lung, sleep, and pandemic related consequences on lung and sleep problems has become a critical and urgent challenge. Our proposed training program is designed to help address these problems by increasing the number of well-trained early career faculty from institutions across the country that will be positioned to contribute to research geared to resolve health and healthcare disparities in the area of lung, sleep, and pandemic consequences to lung and sleep conditions and thereby promote health equity.