Health Equity Research Virtual Site Visit (VSV): University of Massachusetts Medical School

The AAMC Health Equity Research Virtual Site Visit is a new resource that highlights the outstanding health equity research portfolios at our member institutions.

The University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS), together with UMass Memorial Health Care, seeks to advance the well-being of the people of the commonwealth and the world through pioneering education, research, and health care delivery. UMMS emphasizes eliminating health disparities through service, research, and preparing its students to care for populations whose needs are currently not being met.

On this page, learn more about:

• The Center for Health Equity Intervention Research (CHEIR)
• The Health and Criminal Justice Program
• The Population Health Clerkship (PHC) & Curriculum Development Project
• The Simulation-based Community-engaged Research Intervention for Informed Consent Protocol Testing and Training (SCRIIPTT)

In 2012, CHEIR was established with a five-year grant from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities. The Center focuses on developing and testing clinical and community interventions to improve health and health care and to eliminate health disparities across Massachusetts.

CHEIR weaves together science and theory by using narrative-based interventions and storytelling to produce powerful, behavior-changing stories told in patients’ own voices to help others. There are four storytelling intervention projects currently funded under CHEIR – see More Resources for detailed information. Here is one storytelling intervention project currently funded under CHEIR.

For over 20 years, UMMS has worked to improve the health outcomes of populations supervised by the criminal justice system.

The Health and Criminal Justice Program, a part of UMass Medical School’s Commonwealth Medicine division, focuses on research and scholarship, education, service, and consulting for this population.

UMMS has forged partnerships across several medical schools to create the Academic Consortium on Criminal Justice Health, which hosts an international, interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed conference now in its eighth year.

Required for all UMMS second year medical and graduate nursing students, the PHC is a two-week immersion component of the Determinants of Health course that uses service-learning pedagogy to introduce both public health concepts and communities as a unit of care.

The clerkship encourages students to develop and nurture equitable partnerships with community organizations for exchanging knowledge and resources. The students also work with the Determinants of Health course leaders to identify opportunities for incorporating population health and social determinant-related concepts throughout the undergraduate medical education curriculum.

The SCRIIPTT project uses innovative simulation-based interventions to incorporate cultural and linguistic competency as part of informed consent training using the expertise and participation of community members from populations under-represented in research.

SCRIIPTT is a community-academic partnership across four entities: a community organization (Mosaic Cultural Complex); the UMass Center for Health Equity Intervention Research; the CCTS Bioethics Core and IRB; and the UMass Inter-professional Center for Experiential Learning and Simulation (iCELS). A project supported by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under award number UL1TR000161.

Here is a short clip demonstrating the simulation exercise. A Community Advisor is playing the Acting Research Participant, and a team debriefs with the Research Assistant to engage in deliberate practice on areas needing improvement.

• SCRIIPTT Project Checklist (PDF)
• SCRIIPTT Project Overview (PDF)
• SCRIIPTT Simulation Video and Interview