These awards provide funding for exploratory work or newly established projects that align with the Center’s overall vision and thematic priorities. They are intended to foster collaborations across the University of Michigan community, including with global partners. They are available to faculty engaged in one of the Center’s four Challenge Groups: Climate Vulnerability and Health, Data Science, Designing for Impact in Global Health, and Empowering Women and Communities.
To date, the Center has awarded nearly $300,000 for five Challenge Group Grants. These awards represent projects that engage 24 faculty across 11 University of Michigan schools, colleges, and institutes as well as 20 global partners.
“Among our first goals as a Center was to establish global health communities of practice across the institution, and our Challenge Groups have allowed us to do that,” said Center Director Joseph Kolars, MD, MACP, UMMS Senior Associate Dean for Education and Global Initiatives. “Through these grants, these communities are advancing new projects and extending our Center network to bring in global partners around the world.”
Below, find a list of Challenge Group grants awarded to date. The next deadline to submit proposals is April 8, 2022. View upcoming Challenge Group meetings in the Events area of the Center website.
Challenge Group: Empowering Women and Communities
U-M Leads: Laura Rozek (Public Health), Cheryl Moyer (Medicine)
Global Partners: Chutimav Morlaeku (Indigenous Mountain Peoples Education and Cultural Association of Thailand), Malee Sitthi Kriengkrai (Chiang Mai University), Ariya Svetamra (Chiang Mai University), Tawatchai Apidechkul (Mae Fa Luang University)
Description: Working with local partners, the project leads plan to develop ethnographic and related qualitative instruments to explore how indigenous women in Thailand conceptualize empowerment and its relationship to their health and the health of their children.
Challenge Group: Designing for Impact in Global Health
U-M Leads: Kathleen Sienko (Engineering), Paul Clyde (Ross)
Global Partners: Abena Tannor (Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, Ghana), Elise Kaufmann (University of Allied Health Sciences, Ghana), Thomas Konney (Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, Ghana)
Description: The main activities of the project include: developing a commercialization pipeline for new technologies designed for use in LMIC settings; identifying and defining contextual factors that affect commercialization of global health technologies through practitioner interviews and secondary research; and designing a fellowship pilot program to develop capacity for local clinical trial testing and analysis of global health technologies.
Challenge Group: Data Science
U-M Leads: Dirgha Ghimire (Institute for Social Research), Carlos Mendes de Leon (Public Health)
Global Partners: Uttam Sharma (Institute for Social and Environmental Research, Nepal), Janak Rai (Tribhuvan University), Meeta Sainju Pradhan (Institute for Social and Environmental Research, Nepal)
Description: The Institute for Social and Environmental Research–Nepal is already collaborating with U-M on the development of a population survey in older adults in Chitwan Valley to study aging and dementia in Nepal. The Challenge Group award will help project leads develop and pilot a new dimension of their population survey: the collection of blood samples from participants.
Challenge Group: Empowering Women and Communities
U-M Leads: Gary Harper (Public Health), Laura Jadwin-Cakmak (Public Health)
Global Partners: Caroline Rucah (Western Kenya LBQT Feminist Forum), Becky Odhiambo (Western Kenya LBQT Feminist Forum), Anita Mbanda (Western Kenya LBQT Feminist Forum), Wilson Odero (Maseno University)
Description: Kenya is home to an increasingly more visible sexual and gender minority community. Through a mix of qualitative individual in-depth interviews and focus group discussions, the proposed study will take the first step toward developing policies, programs, and services aimed at promoting health equity among LBQ women in Kenya.
Challenge Groups: Climate Vulnerability and Health, Data Science
U-M Leads: Joe Eisenberg (Public Health), Pamela Jagger (Environment and Sustainability), Akbar Waljee (Medicine)
Global Partners: Anthony Ngugi (Aga Khan University, Department of Population Health), Zul Merali (Aga Khan University, Brain and Mind Institute)
Description: U-M project leads, in partnership with Aga Khan University’s Brain and Mind Institute and Department of Population Health, East Africa, plan to pilot the addition of key environmental health (i.e., climate) and mental health questions to AKU’s Kaloleni-Rabai Community Health and Demographic Surveillance System, an ongoing population-level health and vital events database with a cohort of nearly 80,000 residents in southern rural Kenya. Results will inform ongoing work and interventions in Kaloleni-Rabai.
“Through these grants, these communities are advancing new projects and extending our Center network to bring in global partners around the world.”
