“UHAND”—A National Cancer Institute Funded Partnership to Advance Cancer Health Equity through Scholar Training

Abstract

Black and Hispanic adults are disproportionately affected by cancer incidence and mortality, and experience disparities in cancer relative to their White counterparts in the US. These groups, including women, are underrepresented among scientists in the fields of cancer, cancer disparities, and cancer care. The “UHAND” Program is a partnership between institutions (University of Houston and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center) aiming to build the capacity of underrepresented and racial/ethnic minority student “scholars” to conduct research on eliminating cancer inequities by reducing social and physical risk factors among at-risk groups. Here, we examine the outcomes of the UHAND Program’s first scholar cohort (n = 1 postdoctoral fellow, n = 3 doctoral scholars, n = 6 undergraduate scholars). Data collection included baseline, mid-program, and exit surveys; program records; and monthly scholar achievement queries. From baseline to exit, scholars significantly increased their research self-efficacy (p = 0.0293). Scholars largely met goals for academic products, achieving a combined total of 65 peer-reviewed presentations and nine empirical publications. Eight scholars completed the 2-year program; one undergraduate scholar received her degree early and the postdoctoral fellow accepted a tenure-track position at another university following one year of training. Scholars highly rated UHAND’s programming and their mentors’ competencies in training scholars for research careers. Additionally, we discuss lessons learned that may inform future training programs.

Promoting Cancer Health Equity: A Qualitative Study of Mentee and Mentor Perspectives of a Training Program for Underrepresented Scholars in Cancer Health Disparities

“…Mentored research experiences are regarded as a “high-impact practice,” and its benefits are well documented [ 19 , 20 ]. Our study contributes to this body of literature by addressing factors that foster successful mentoring relations between diverse postdoctoral, graduate, and undergraduate scholars and their faculty mentors who participated in an NCI-funded research training program called UHAND [ 15 ].…”

“…** Table 1 is adapted with permission fromRef. [ 15 ]. 2021, L. R. Reitzel on behalf of all coauthors.…”

“…One program developed as the result of this funding priority, the UHAND program, was a 1–2-year mentored training program in cancer disparities research that prioritized the recruitment of minority and/or women scholars. The program was developed and implemented within a collaboration between the U niversity of H ouston (UH) and The University of Texas MD And erson Cancer Center (MDACC) [ 15 , 16 ]. The UH has been designated as both a Hispanic-Serving Institution and an Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institution.…”

“…The UHAND program was designed by bringing together components of multiple successful training programs. As a result, the program had three components: (1) the Education Program (EP), (2) the Pilot Research Program (PRP), and (3) the Community Outreach Program (COP); each component is described in more detail in Haq and colleagues [ 15 ]. The focus of the present study is the EP, though it also touches on the scholars’ experiences with the COP.…”

“…The findings presented here qualitatively explored the diverse UHAND mentees’ (undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral fellows) and mentors’ program experiences and perspectives to identify effective strategies to increase representation throughout the pipeline and thus diversify this workforce. Past evaluative findings on the UHAND program utilized quantitative data and painted a positive picture of the program, as well as satisfaction with the mentoring relationships across six pre-determined dimensions: maintaining effective communication, aligning expectations, assessing understanding, fostering independence, addressing diversity, and promoting professional development [ 15 ]. However, these quantitative findings cannot elaborate on why scholars evaluated the program and their mentors positively.…”