The purpose of this article is to assist institutions in advancing their efforts to support research mentorship. The authors begin by describing how institutions can shape the key domains of research mentorship: (1) the criteria for selecting mentors, (2) incentives for motivating faculty to serve effectively as mentors, (3) factors that facilitate the mentor-mentee relationship, (4) factors that strengthen a mentee's ability to conduct research responsibly, and (5) factors that contribute to the professional development of both mentees and mentors. On the basis of a conceptual analysis of these domains as currently documented in the literature, as well as their collective experience examining mentoring programs at a range of academic medicine institutions and departments, the authors provide a framework that leaders of institutions and/or departments can adapt for use as a tool to document and monitor policies for guiding the mentorship process, the programs/activities through which these policies are implemented, and the structures that are responsible for maintaining policies and implementing programs. The authors provide an example of how one hypothetical institution might use the self-assessment tool to track its policies, programs, and structures across the key domains of research mentorship and, on the basis of this information, identify a range of potential actions to strengthen its research mentoring efforts. The authors conclude with a brief discussion of the limitations of the self-assessment tool, the potential drawbacks and benefits of the overall approach, and proposed next steps for research in this area.

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The study explores whether and how lifetime violence exposure is related to a set of negative symptoms: child internalizing and externalizing behavior problems, child trauma symptoms, and parenting stress. Using a large sample of violence-exposed children recruited to participate in intervention research, the study employs different methods of measuring that exposure. These include total frequency of all lifetime exposure, total frequency of lifetime exposure by broad category (i.e., assault, maltreatment, sexual abuse, and witnessing violence), and polyvictimization defined as exposure to multiple violence categories. The results indicate that only polyvictimization, constructed as a dichotomous variable indicating two or more categories of lifetime exposure, emerged as a consistent predictor of negative symptoms. The total lifetime frequency of all violence exposure was not associated with negative symptoms, after controlling for the influence of polyvictimization. Likewise, in the presence of a dichotomous polyvictimization indicator the total lifetime frequency of exposure to a particular violence category was unrelated to symptoms overall, with the exception of trauma symptoms and experiences of sexual abuse. Taken together, these findings suggest that total lifetime exposure is not particularly important to negative symptoms, nor is any particular category of exposure after controlling for polyvictimization, with the single exception of sexual abuse and trauma symptoms. Instead, it is the mix of exposure experiences that predict negative impacts on children in this sample. Further research is needed to continue to explore and test these issues.

Research Centers initiative, which seeks to promote interdisciplinary geriatric research by improving institutions' capacity to conduct such research, focusing on the development of innovative clinical and health services interventions that can be translated into real-world practice, and providing interdisciplinary training opportunities. 1 It is also hoped that the centers will be competitive in attracting subsequent extramural, peerreviewed funding for the design and study of such interventions.The Hartford Foundation's Web site notes that "interdisciplinary research is vital to improving the care of older people, whose complex needs require the interaction of social, psychological and biological elements." 2 The foundation has played an important role in promoting clinical education and academic training in aging across multiple disciplines. Some of the foundation's most successful efforts have drawn from interdisciplinary research; these include Project IMPACT (Improv ing Mood-Promoting Access to Collaborative Treatment); the Hospital at Home model; and the Rush University Medical Center Virtual Integrated Practice model. 3Interdisciplinary collaboration is an important characteristic of health research, but there are a number of well-documented barriers to conducting interdisciplinary research. 4 Structural barriers include the standard framework of distinct schools and departments with traditional mechanisms for faculty recognition and compensation that reward success within one's primary discipline; difficulties publishing interdisciplinary papers in journals with a single-discipline focus; and lack of time to learn about another discipline's potential con-G r a n t W a t c h tributions to one's work. There are also intellectual or turf barriers, including how to define success and move to consensus on issues to study. 5Despite these barriers, there are ways to foster interdisciplinary research, including requiring interdisciplinary collaboration as a funding condition and establishing research training programs that emphasize the involvement of other disciplines. 6 Administrative barriers can be addressed by changing tenure and promotion requirements and by establishing joint centers.Interdisciplinary collaboration is also important for individual researchers' careers. Exposure to and training in interdisciplinary research is crucial to developing new clinical researchers, as evidenced by the new National Institutes of Health (NIH) Roadmap for Medical Research awards that support training in interdisciplinary strategies and encourage interdisciplinary depth in projects. OverviewBetween 2002 and 2005, RAND and the Hartford Foundation conducted the first round of the Building Interdisciplinary Geriatric Health Care Research Centers initiative; the five centers funded were at Duke University; Boston University; University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA); University of Pennsylvania; and Yale University. The centers were required to incorporate three complementary interdisciplinary elements: (1) geriatric r...

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