Public Health Professor Awarded Major Grant

Tilicia Mayo-Gamble, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Department of Health Policy and Community Health, has received a $250,000 grant from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute for sickle cell study. The project, “Capacity Building to Create a Patient-Centered Research Dissemination Model,” is a collaborative effort between Mayo-Gamble and Velma McBride Murry, Ph.D., a professor of health policy and human and organizational development at Vanderbilt University. The grant will help Mayo-Gamble work with sickle cell patients to increase knowledge and awareness of useful interventions on chronic disease management.

“When conducting patient-centered research, disseminating the findings has important implications for patient care,” she noted. “Providers may not be aware of new disease management strategies to improve the quality of care for their patients. As end-users, patients have an opportunity to bridge the gap between publication and practice. Yet, patients may not have the self-efficacy or tools necessary to engage in these conversations.”

Mayo-Gamble explained her project engages patients as partners to develop and implement a train-the-trainer model to educate patients with sickle cell disease on how to identify important points in research findings and guide researchers on patient-friendly strategies for dissemination to ensure research findings reach providers in sickle cell disease care.

“Our hope is that this will also serve as a model for dissemination in other chronic conditions impacting minority populations,” she said.