Project Summary The discipline of biomedical informatics is primed to foster scientific innovation and advance health equity. To truly harness the potential of multitude of methods, theories, and application in the field of the informatics, there is pressing need to enhance the diversity of the research community. Recent educational research suggests that intentional connections to culture, community, and local needs may be critical to welcoming and retaining individuals that are traditionally marginalized in biomedical research. Place-based education, a form of community-based learning, aims for purposeful student engagement that is responsive to local environmental and health needs, including its history, culture, people, and ecology. Such learning cultivates critical and analytical skills and actively engages students in real-world problem solving and holds much potential for increasing student engagement in scientific research as well as in interdisciplinary areas such as informatics. In this project, we propose to develop a truly interdisciplinary, Place-based Culturally responsive Health Informatics Research Education (PHIRE) program that brings together expertise from data science, systems science and engineering, health informatics, and public health and infuses regional assets and needs from the community into the training and curricula. The vision of the PHIRE training program is to recruit and prepare a diverse pool of 60 undergraduate students (12 students per year) to conduct scientific research in health informatics with an inherent focus on addressing health disparities and public health needs. The PHIRE training program includes three major components: (1) a 12-week summer research experience, (2) a thematic undergraduate minor in health informatics, and (3) preparation for graduate school or other research careers in health informatics.

Project Narrative This training program is designed to recruit 100 diverse undergraduate students over five years and prepare them to conduct research in health informatics. As a part of the training, students will address health problems in the Southwest, which will address health disparities in region and give students a meaningful experience.