The College of Health Sciences was represented by two faculty members and one graduate student at the Mountain West Clinical and Translational Research Infrastructure Network sixth annual meeting on June 10-11 in Las Vegas, Nevada where they presented and shared research with other university faculty researchers.
The Mountain West Clinical and Translational Research Infrastructure Network is an Institutional Development Award program that works to build and increase infrustructures capacity to assist faculty researchers in successfully conducting their research. Assistance is provided for research faculty from any partnered university in the Mountain West region to advance health disparities research. The Mountain West region includes universities from Idaho, Nevada, Hawaii, Alaska, Wyoming, New Mexico, and Montana. Annual meetings allow Mountain West Clinical and Translational Research Infrastructure Network grant recipients to present their research progress and results, and to also network with other researchers in the region.
Cynthia Curl, assistant professor and co-director for the Center for Excellence in Environmental Health & Safety, attended the conference with Rachel Phinney, graduate student, both in the Department of Community and Environmental Health to share progress on their pilot study entitled, “The Assessment of Risk Factors for Health Disparities Among Latina Farm Workers.”
Curl, who serves as the principal investigator, is accompanied in this ongoing project by other Boise State researchers, Rebecca Som Castellano, an associate professor in the Department of Sociology, Lisa Meierotto, an assistant professor in the School of Public Service, and Jennifer Schneider, a professor and PhD program coordinator for the School of Public Service’s public policy and administration program. The team also includes several other undergraduate and graduate students.
The team was awarded a $65,000 grant from the Mountain West Clinical and Translational Research Infrastructure Network for their study that aims to assess social, cultural, and occupational related risk factors for health disparities among Latina farm workers. Their study uses a mixed methods approach that employs surveys, interviews, focus groups, and biological monitoring to measure pesticide levels.
Curl presented research progress at a formal podium presentation at the conference, and then again in poster format alongside graduate student Phinney. This project concluded at the end of June and is estimated to have published results this fall.
Also, Tyler Brown, assistant professor for the Department of Kinesiology and director for the Center for Orthopaedic and Biomechanics Research, attended the conference to present an update on the progress of his study entitled, “Analysis of Knee Motion to Prevent and Treat the Increasing Incidence of Premature Knee OA.” Brown presented his update in both podium and poster format.
Brown’s research presentation outlined his ongoing study of Osteoarthritis, which is a musculoskeletal disease that typically affects older adults, but is starting to increase among adults prematurely. Therefore, Brown and his team are performing research to improve knee Osteoarthritis prevention and treatment by developing a novel, effective measure of knee joint instability, a major cause of premature Osteoarthritis.
Although Brown presented at the conference alone, he is accompanied on the research project by Kinesiology graduate students, Micah Drew and Samantha Krammer. Brown and his team of students were awarded a $61,600 grant from the Mountain West Clinical and Translational Research Infrastructure Network for this study.
Learn more about the Mountain West Clinical and Translational Research Infrastructure Network.
-By Taylor Music