Grant: Training Grant

The ACHIEVE Research Partnership will be Canada's first praxis-oriented, engaged research immersion program aimed to advance use of research evidence for effective and sustainable inner city health interventions. ACHIEVE will mentor highly-trained health researchers to collaborate across scientific disciplines and with influential program and policy decision makers, in order to address inner city health problems and reduce health inequities. Across all health conditions, lower income families and individuals face highest rates of illness and experience greatest unmet need for health care. This is especially true in low-income urban neighbourhoods, where residents may face deep poverty, homelessness or unstable housing, social exclusion, family disruption, substance abuse and mental health disorders, barriers to service utilization, and social and economic isolation. During the last two decades, Canada has fallen behind many other nations in taking action to address health inequity. Relevant interventions research and strong cross-sectoral partnerships are needed to generate better evidence of "what works and why" in the Canadian context, and to move evidence into action. ACHIEVE will provide a training platform for new scientists to develop skills in complex interventions research and to work effectively in partnership with inner city health service providers, policy makers, and stakeholders. Over the course of this intensive, two-year program, Fellows will develop competencies that are unavailable through traditional graduate training yet necessary for closing the gap between monitoring urban health disparities and reducing them. ACHIEVE will be based at the Centre for Research on Inner City Health at St. Michael's Hospital. This dynamic setting offers unparalleled opportunities to generate evidence and alliances for urban health equity and to launch the careers of ACHIEVE Fellows.