NYU Center for the Study of Asian American Health Pilot Project Program
The NYU Center for the Study of Asian American Health (CSAAH) Pilot Project Program supports postdoctoral fellows, junior faculty, and early-stage investigators at NYU Langone Health in performing pilot research and generating preliminary findings on health disparities in Asian American populations and other emerging communities. The program offers two types of awards:
- Postdoctoral Fellow Award: Up to $15,000 for direct costs
- Junior Faculty and Early-Stage Investigator Award: Up to $30,000 for direct costs.
To date, we have funded 45 projects to date over the last six award cycles.
About the Pilot Project Program
CSAAH’s Investigator Development (ID) Core is co-led by Lorna E. Thorpe, PhD and Jiyuan Hu, PhD, with Stella S. Yi, PhD, MPH, who served as ID Core Director for cycles 3 to 5. The program is based in the Section for Health Equity, part of the Division of Health and Behavior at NYU Langone’s Department of Population Health.
The CSAAH Pilot Project Program aimsto increase the number of junior investigators conducting health disparities research that includes Asian American and other emerging communities, to expand the capacity of these investigators to improve health equity through rigorous, community-engaged, transdisciplinary research.
The program allocates $150,000 annually to support postdoctoral fellows, junior faculty, and early-career investigators at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. This funding is designed to pave the way for larger-scale research applications and scientific discovery. Over the last five years, our program funding has also generated more than $12 million in annual direct costs of additional awards, including National Institutes of Health (NIH) Research Career Development Awards, Research Project Grants, Administrative Supplements, and other award types through various sponsors such as the American Gastroenterological Association, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and more.
Pilot Project Aims
The CSAAH Pilot Project Program has several specific aims:
- establish and sustain a network of well-trained junior investigators with an emphasis on health disparity and minority communities
- provide continuous mentorship and strong technical support to mentees in conducting their pilot projects and enhance their capacity to successfully compete for expanded funding on a national level
- review and promote research products, including manuscripts, proposals, and community dissemination materials, to advance CSAAH’s scientific goals and ensure research findings are effectively communicated and used to inform policy and practice.
Focus of Awards
CSAAH is guided by principles focused on achieving systemic change across multiple domains and levels of influence and stimulating action-oriented research to reduce health disparities. We have identified and established seven key strategies for advancing a transdisciplinary population health equity agenda that informs our research approach. We typically have funded pilot awards that address one or more of these themes:
- applying a social determinants of health approach
- conducting research guided by multisectoral coalitions
- through community-based ethnic coalitions and pan-ethnic advisory groups
- performing disaggregated data collection to better represent all groups and populations
- building human and social capital to highlight community strengths
- fostering clinical practice and community linkages and access to care
- strengthening organizational and community-based infrastructures through capacity-building activities
We strive to eliminate health disparities and advance health equity among Asian American populations through the Section for Health Equity’s research tracks focused on cardiovascular health and diabetes, cancer, mental health, healthy aging and Alzheimer’s Disease, and women’s health equity, and the Applied Research and Evaluation Unit. Applicants were encouraged to align their pilot project proposals with one or more of our research tracks. We also encouraged applications utilizing elements of community-partnered research, systems science, mixed methods, and implementation science methodologies.
Previous Pilot Project Program Requests for Applications (RFA)
Awardees and Projects, 2022–23
Byoungjun Kim, PhD
Project title: Racial/ethnic residential segregation and type 2 diabetes mellitus/care among Asians: Role of ethnic neighborhoods
Hayley Belli, PhD, MS, and Rebecca Lassell, PhD
Project title: A green activity prescription program for Chinese Americans living with dementia
Hyungrok Do, PhD
Project title: Fair risk predictions for underrepresented Asian American populations using electronic health records
Madison N. LeCroy, PhD
Project title: Family relationships and dietary intake among Chinese American adolescents
Nicole Anzai, MD
Project title: Characterizing the relationship between vaping, eating disorder symptoms, and perceived discrimination among Asian American youth in outpatient psychiatric care
Sarah Lee, MD, MBA
Project title: Uptake of genetic testing and presence of germline and somatic mutations for Asian subpopulations with gynecologic cancers
Sugy Choi, PhD, MS
Project title: Improving quality of Asian American subgroup race-ethnicity data with a focus on patients with substance use disorder
Yaena Song, EdD
Project title: Designing pediatric oral health education for Chinese-American immigrant families in Brooklyn
Yousra Yusuf, PhD, MPH
Project title: Landscape analysis and participatory system dynamics modeling to explore the state of reproductive health education in American Muslim communities
Awardees and Projects, 2021–22
Natan Vega Potler, MD
Project title: Characterizing resilience, mental health needs, and service utilization among second-generation Chinese and Mexican American adolescents in Brooklyn
Jiyuan Hu, PhD
Project title: Developing a trans-ancestry polygenic risk score for the prediction of coronary artery calcification progression among multiple ethnic groups
Omar El Shahawy, MD, PhD, MPH
Project title: Developing an mHealth ecological momentary approach for comprehensive diabetes management among Chinese American adult smokers with type 2 diabetes
Alicia Chung, EdD, MPH
Project title: Exploring strategies to address social determinants of health needs of Chinese-American families in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, in a COVID-19 Era
Perla Chebli, PhD, MPH
Project title: Participatory concept mapping and implementation developmental evaluation for BRACE-CHW: A breast and cervical cancer community health worker intervention with Chinese and Arab communities in Brooklyn
Lan N. Đoàn PhD, MPH
Project title: Neighborhood environments and COVID-19 among Asian American subgroups in New York City
Andrea Titus, PhD
Project title: Trends and risk factors associated with pediatric asthma among Medicaid-enrolled non-Hispanic Asian American children in New York City
Vanessa Salcedo, MD, MPH
Project title: Examining sugar-sweeten beverage and 100 percent fruit juice consumption in young Latinx and Asian children
Awardees and Projects, 2020–21
Erin Rogers, DrPH, MPH
Project title: Estimating the prevalence of, and preferences for assistance with, comorbid tobacco use and food insecurity among racial and ethnic minority cancer survivors living in New York
Jeannette M. Beasley, PhD, MPH
Project title: Validating a dietary screener adapted for Asian Americans
Vanessa Rodriguez, EdD
Project title: Examining educators’ social emotional learning, competency, and mental health to inform wellness promotion strategies development: Reducing mental health disparities in Asian American educators
Paroma Mitra, MD, and Supriya Misra, ScD
Project title: Identifying structural and cultural influences on the experiences of U.S. South Asian with severe mental illnesses to promote recovery and reintegration
Chen Wang, PhD
Project title: Identifying the role of microbiome in health disparity in obesity by a novel microbial causal mediation analytic tool
Rebecca Anthopolos, DrPH
Project title: Identifying and charactering latent risk groups of cardiometabolic risk factors associated with type 2 diabetes mellitus among Asian Americans
Awardees and Projects, 2019–20
Ben Spoer, PhD, MPH
Project title: Geographic differences in health and social determinants of health among Asian Americans and Asian American subgroups in the 500 largest cities in the United States
Samrachana Adhikari, PhD
Project title: Machine learning to inform family and population-centered approach to mental health programming: Reducing mental health disparities in Asian American children
Pasquale E. Rummo, PhD, MPH
Project title: Online grocery shopping behaviors and attitudes among Asian Americans
Sara K. Chokshi, DrPH and Katherine Lawrence, MD, MPH
Project title: Engaging patients in the user-centered design of a Chinese language patient portal
Carol Duh-Leong, MD, MPP
Project title: Using a social-behavioral framework to investigate infant feeding health literacy and social capital in immigrant Chinese American caregivers
Fen Wu, PhD
Project title: Ethnic disparities in the presentation and survival of patients with cervical cancer: An analysis using the National Cancer Database
Contact Us
For more information, including key dates, review criteria, or submission requirements, please contact Rebecca Lee, MPA, program manager, at rebecca.lee3@nyulangone.org.
