Several members of the UCSF Department of Family & Community Medicine research community recently received new grant awards supporting innovative, equity-driven projects in reproductive health and social medicine.
April Bell, PhD, MPH, received two new grants. A Society of Family Planning award will support her study on how Black adolescents use generative AI (e.g., ChatGPT) to seek contraception information and how these tools shape knowledge, trust, and decision-making. Working with the Girlx Lab Youth Advisory Board and with co-investigators Rachel Logan, PhD, MPH and Tracey Wilkinson, MD, MPH (Indiana University), Dr. Bell’s team will generate insights to inform culturally responsive sex education and digital literacy programs.
With support from the UCSF Research Resilience Initiative, Dr. Bell is also leading a national landscape analysis to identify gaps in adolescent survey representation and develop strategies for creating a sustainable, youth-centered national panel of Black adolescents to guide future health research.
Kelsey Holt, ScD, MA, and Beth Phillips, MPH, will lead a new NIH R01 effectiveness-implementation trial in rural Uganda to evaluate I-CAN, a peer-support intervention that trains experienced contraception users to help other women make and act on informed contraceptive decisions. Through a Society of Family Planning award, Dr. Holt and co-PI Hannah Leslie (UCSF Department of Medicine) will also lead a study on susceptibility to contraceptive misinformation in Mississippi, conducted in partnership with the reproductive justice organization Mississippi in Action.
The Social Interventions Research & Evaluation Network (SIREN) team is supporting a study led by UCSF Pediatrics' Matt Pantell, MD, MS, named the Social Needs Assistance for Hospitalized Kids (SNAK) Trial, which received an $11 million PCORI grant.