Research participants want to receive results from studies in which they participate. However, health researchers rarely share the results of their studies beyond scientific publication. Little is known about the barriers researchers face in returning study results to participants.

Using a mixed-methods design, health researchers (N = 414) from more than 40 US universities were asked about barriers to providing results to participants. Respondents were recruited from universities with Clinical and Translational Science Award programs and Prevention Research Centers.

Respondents reported the percent of their research where they experienced each of the four barriers to disseminating results to participants: logistical/methodological, financial, systems, and regulatory. A fifth barrier, investigator capacity, emerged from data analysis. Training for research faculty and staff, promotion and tenure incentives, and funding agencies supporting dissemination of results to participants were solutions offered to overcoming barriers.

Study findings add to literature on research dissemination by documenting health researchers’ perceived barriers to sharing study results with participants. Implications for policy and practice suggest that additional resources and training could help reduce dissemination barriers and increase the return of results to participants.

This paper reports on the baseline stage of a qualitative evaluation of the application of the Innovative Scorecard (ISC) to the Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) at Galveston. The ISC is adopted from the established Balanced Scorecard system for strategic planning and performance management. In formulating the evaluation, we focused on the organizational identity literature.

The initial evaluation consisted of a series of semi-structured interviews with 22 participants of the ISC Boot Camp conducted in July 2015.

The logic of grounded theory pointed to the clustering of perceptions of the ISC around respondents’ occupational locations at UTMB. Administrators anticipate the expansion of planning activities to include a wider range of participants under the current CTSA award period (2015–2020) than under our first CTSA approval period (2009–2014). A common viewpoint among the senior scientists was that the scientific value of their work will continue to speak for itself without requiring the language of business. Junior scientists looked forward to the ISC’s emphasis on increasingly horizontal leadership that will give them more access to and more control over their work and resources. Postdocs and senior staff welcomed increased involvement in the total research process at UTMB.

The report concludes with strategies for future follow-up.

Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSAs) and Practice-Based Research Networks (PBRNs) have complementary missions. We replicated a 2008 survey of CTSA-PBRN leaders to understand how organizational relationships have evolved.

We surveyed 60 CTSA community engagement (CE) Directors and 135 PBRN Directors and analyzed data using between and within-group comparisons.

In total, 43% of CTSA CE Directors (26/60) and 42% of PBRN Directors (57/135) responded. Quantitative responses revealed growing alignment between CTSA/PBRN perceptions, with a few areas of discordance. CE Directors noted declining financial support for PBRNs. PBRN Directors identified greater CTSA effectiveness in PBRN engagement, consultation, and collaborative grant submissions. Qualitative data revealed divergent experiences across CTSA/PBRN programs.

Relationships between CTSAs and PBRNs are maturing; for some that means strengthening and for others a growing vulnerability. Findings suggest a mutual opportunity for PBRNs and CTSAs around applied research. Studies to characterize exemplar CTSA-PBRN collaborations are needed.

There is growing evidence for both the need to manage work–life conflict and the opportunity for mentors to advise their mentees on how to do this in an academic research environment.

A multiphase approach was used to develop and implement an evidence-informed training module to help mentors guide their mentees in issues of work–life conflict. Analysis of existing data from a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of a mentor training curriculum (n = 283 mentor/mentee dyads) informed the development of a work–life mentoring module which was incorporated into an established research mentor training curriculum and evaluated by faculty at a single academic medical center.

Only 39% of mentors and 36% of mentees in the RCT indicated high satisfaction with the balance between their personal and professional lives. The majority (75%) of mentors and mentees were sharing personal information as part of the mentoring relationship which was significantly associated with mentees’ ratings of the balance between their personal and professional lives. The effectiveness of the work–life module was assessed by 60 faculty mentors participating in a mentor training program at an academic medical center from 2013 to 2017. Among the respondents to the post-training survey, 82.5% indicated they were very/somewhat comfortable addressing work–life issues with their mentees as a result of the training, with significant improvements (p = 0.001) in self-assessments of mentoring skill in this domain.

Our findings indicate that a structured training approach can significantly improve mentors’ self-reported skills in addressing work–life issues with their mentees.

There is growing concern about the declining physician-scientist workforce. NIH recently provided a national dashboard describing the biomedical research workforce, but local strategies are needed.

We used curated local and national data to develop a workforce dashboard.

Many trends at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) were similar to those nationally, such as the increasing percentage of Research Project Grant (RPG)-holding PhDs and the aging RPG population, but differences were also apparent. At OHSU, nearly ¾ of physician-scientist RPGs hold MD-only, compared with nationally, where nearly half are MD/PhD. OHSU also lags in the percentage of RPGs held by women physician-scientists.

Our analysis also permitted us to gain a more complete picture of research funding that has been done nationally. We used these data to develop a dashboard that allows our institution to develop policies to increase the numbers of physician-scientists. The data generation approaches and dashboard are likely to be useful at other institutions, as well.

While previous studies have described career outcomes of physician-scientist trainees after graduation, trainee perceptions of research-intensive career pathways remain unclear. This study sought to identify the perceived interests, factors, and challenges associated with academic and research careers among predoctoral MD trainees, MD trainees with research-intense (>50%) career intentions (MD-RI), and MD-PhD trainees.

A 70-question survey was administered to 16,418 trainees at 32 academic medical centers from September 2012 to December 2014. MD vs. MD-RI (>50% research intentions) vs. MD-PhD trainee responses were compared by chi-square tests. Multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed to identify variables associated with academic and research career intentions.

There were 4433 respondents (27% response rate), including 2625 MD (64%), 653 MD-RI (15%), and 856 MD-PhD (21%) trainees. MD-PhDs were most interested in pursuing academia (85.8%), followed by MD-RIs (57.3%) and MDs (31.2%). Translational research was the primary career intention for MD-PhD trainees (42.9%). Clinical duties were the primary career intention for MD-RIs (51.9%) and MDs (84.2%). While 39.8% of MD-PhD respondents identified opportunities for research as the most important career selection factor, only 12.9% of MD-RI and 0.5% of MD respondents shared this perspective. Interest in basic research, translational research, clinical research, education, and the ability to identify a mentor were each independently associated with academic career intentions by multivariate regression.

Predoctoral MD, MD-RI, and MD-PhD trainees are unique cohorts with different perceptions and interests toward academic and research careers. Understanding these differences may help to guide efforts to mentor the next generation of physician-scientists.

There is discontent and turnover among faculty at US academic health centers because of the challenges in balancing clinical, research, teaching, and work–life responsibilities in the current healthcare environment. One potential strategy to improve faculty satisfaction and limit turnover is through faculty mentoring programs.

A Mentor Leadership Council was formed to design and implement an institution-wide faculty mentoring program across all colleges at an academic health center. The authors conducted an experimental study of the impact of the mentoring program using pre-intervention (2011) and 6-year (2017) post-intervention faculty surveys that measured the long-term effectiveness of the program.

The percent of faculty who responded to the surveys was 45.9% (656/1428) in 2011 and 40.2% (706/1756) in 2017. For faculty below the rank of full professor, percent of faculty with a mentor (45.3% vs. 67.1%, P < 0.001), familiarity with promotion criteria (81.7% vs. 90.0%, P = 0.001), and satisfaction with department’s support of career (75.6% vs. 84.7%, P = 0.002) improved. The percent of full professors serving as mentors also increased from 50.3% in 2011 to 68.0% in 2017 (P = 0.002). However, the percent of non-retiring faculty considering leaving the institution over the next 2 years increased from 18.8% in 2011 to 24.3% in 2017 (P = 0.02).

Implementation of an institution-wide faculty mentoring program significantly improved metrics of career development and faculty satisfaction but was not associated with a reduction in the percent of faculty considering leaving the institution. This suggests the need for additional efforts to identify and limit factors driving faculty turnover.

Community engagement (CE) has become more prevalent among academic health centers (AHCs), with significant diversity in practices and language. The array of approaches to CE contributes to confusion among practitioners.

We have reviewed multiple models of CE utilized by AHCs, Clinical and Translational Science Awards, and higher education institutions overall. Taking these models into consideration, we propose a comprehensive model of CE that encompasses a broader spectrum of activities and programs.

The CE Components Practical Model includes 5 components: Community Outreach and Service, Education, Clinical Care, Research, and Policy and Advocacy. The components are supported by the foundational elements within administrative functions and infrastructure.

This model will accomplish the following: (1) reduce confusion about CE; (2) provide a broader understanding of CE; and (3) increase the ability of CE practitioners to interact with each other through this common reference and engage in advancing CE scholarship.

Research shows incentives can motivate faculty to increase their engagement in mentoring, despite a myriad of institutional barriers. One such incentive may be the implementation of a university-wide mentor award program to promote a culture of mentorship.

A new mentorship award was created at a research-intensive university and faculty recipients were surveyed to assess their perceptions of the award’s impact on their mentoring practices and career.

Sixty-two percent of awardees (n=21) completed the survey and felt the recognition incentivized them to engage in further mentoring and participate in formal mentorship training. Most awardees referenced the award in their CVs, performance evaluations, and grant proposals. Additionally, they felt the award effectively promoted mentoring among the broader faculty community.

Growth of clinical and translational research depends in part on the mentorship received by early career faculty. Therefore, other research universities may benefit from implementing such awards.

In order to fully participate in informed consent, patients must understand what it is that they are agreeing, or not agreeing, to. In most cases, patients look to their clinicians to help develop the appropriate understanding required to give informed consent. Often the quality of the information available as well as the delivery methods are not optimal.

Using a visual aid as an adjunct to risk communication in a stressful setting as the Emergency Department has a clear potential in facilitating the communication process. To support more accurate and consistent presentation of risk, we formed a team with implementation scientists, patient education specialists, nurses, physicians, and professional designers to transform the information available into a 6th grade reading level visual aid tool. We applied a DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control) process to design the tool. We measured and analyzed its effectiveness through feedback from providers, patients, and caregivers. This cycle happened 3 times until we reached the final version of the visual aid.

We utilized a DMAIC methodology as well as modified Delphi method to create and refine a visual aid tool. Several rounds of end-user feedback along with DMAIC allowed us to create a tool that was consistently better with each round of development, analysis and feedback. After arriving at the final version of the tool, we surveyed physicians in our Emergency Department. We measured the difficulty to understand the information, whether doctors think the visual aid will help patients to understand the data, and the appropriateness of the tool’s length and the amount of information in it.

We believe that our experience can be replicated by other researchers and clinicians in the endeavor of translating the evidence into clinical practice. An effort should be made to fully translate research findings until the end of the research to practice continuum in order to better translate knowledge into a useful and useable form for informed consent decisions in busy clinical practice.

MD-PhD training programs train physician-scientists to pursue careers involving both clinical care and research, but decreasing numbers of physician-scientists stay engaged in clinical research. We sought to identify current clinical research training methods utilized by MD–PhD programs and to assess how effective they are in promoting self-efficacy for clinical research.

The US MD–PhD students were surveyed in April–May 2018. Students identified the clinical research training methods they participated in, and self-efficacy in clinical research was determined using a modified 12-item Clinical Research Appraisal Inventory.

Responses were received from 61 of 108 MD–PhD institutions. Responses were obtained from 647 MD–PhD students in all years of training. The primary methods of clinical research training included no clinical research training, and various combinations of didactics, mentored clinical research, and a clinical research practicum. Students with didactics plus mentored clinical research had similar self-efficacy as those with didactics plus clinical research practicum. Training activities that differentiated students who did and did not have the clinical research practicum experience and were associated with higher self-efficacy included exposure to Institutional Review Boards and participation in human subject recruitment.

A clinical research practicum was found to be an effective option for MD–PhD students conducting basic science research to gain experience in clinical research skills. Clinical research self-efficacy was correlated with the amount of clinical research training and specific clinical research tasks, which may inform curriculum development for a variety of clinical and translational research training programs, for example, MD–PhD, TL1, and KL2.

To examine research participants’ levels of satisfaction and perceptions and aid researchers to better engage research volunteers from all racial and ethnic populations in clinical trials. A participant satisfaction survey was developed that focused on three domains to reflect satisfaction with delivery of care, environment, and center operations. In addition, the survey contained open-ended questions to reflect overall experiences and perceptions. Two hundred and seventy-eight participants (55% African American and 29% non-Hispanic Whites) with an average age of 52 years completed the survey.

The results indicated that the majority of the participants rated their satisfaction very highly across all domains. Ninety percent stated they were very satisfied/satisfied or very strongly agreed/agreed in the three domains. Obtaining high-quality care/access to health care professionals (60%), learning more about their illness/disease (60%), and helping others (57%) were noted as important factors in choosing to participate in a trial. Regarding overall experience, majority of respondents stated that friendliness, expertise of staff, learning more about their disease, and contributing to science were important. Further, financial compensation was not a primary motivation for participation. A majority of participants stated that they would participate in future studies and would recommend a friend or a family member to participate in clinical trials.

The findings indicate that the degree of satisfaction with the research staff and with the specific trial itself are important determinants for enrolling, completing a study, and for participating in future trials.

Research participation by members of racial or ethnic minority groups continues to be less than optimum resulting in difficulties to generalization of research findings. Community-engaged research that relies on a community health worker (CHW) model has been found effective in building trust in the community, thereby motivating people to participate in health research. The Sentinel Network study aimed at testing the feasibility of utilizing the CHW model to link community members to appropriate health research studies at each of the research sites.

The study was conducted at six Clinical and Translational Science Award institutions (N = 2371) across the country; 733 (30.9%) of the participants were from the University of Florida, 525 (22.0%) were from Washington University in St. Louis, 421 (17.8%) were from the University of California, Davis, 288 (12.1%) were from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 250 (10.5%) were from Rochester, and 154 (6.5%) from Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Trained CHWs from each of these sites conducted regular community outreach where they administered a Health Needs Assessment, provided medical and social referrals, and linked to eligible research studies at each of those sites. A 30-day follow-up assessment was developed to track utilization of services satisfaction with the services and research study participation.

A large majority of people, especially African Americans, expressed willingness to participate in research studies. The top two health concerns reported by participants were hypertension and diabetes.

Findings on the rate of navigation and enrollment in research from this study indicate the effectiveness of a hybrid CHW service and research model of directly engaging community members to encourage people to participate in research.

Many institutions evaluate applications for local seed funding by recruiting peer reviewers from their own institutional community. Smaller institutions, however, often face difficulty locating qualified local reviewers who are not in conflict with the proposal. As a larger pool of reviewers may be accessed through a cross-institutional collaborative process, nine Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) hubs formed a consortium in 2016 to facilitate reviewer exchanges. Data were collected to evaluate the feasibility and preliminary efficacy of the consortium.

The CTSA External Reviewer Exchange Consortium (CEREC) has been supported by a custom-built web-based application that facilitates the process and tracks the efficiency and productivity of the exchange.

All nine of the original CEREC members remain actively engaged in the exchange. Between January 2017 and May 2019, CEREC supported the review process for 23 individual calls for proposals. Out of the 412 reviews requested, 368 were received, for a fulfillment ratio of 89.3%. The yield on reviewer invitations has remained consistently high, with approximately one-third of invitations being accepted, and of the reviewers who agreed to provide a review, 88.3% submitted a complete review. Surveys of reviewers and pilot program administrators indicate high satisfaction with the process.

These data indicate that a reviewer exchange consortium is feasible, adds value to participating partners, and is sustainable over time.

This study examined the effectiveness of a formal postdoctoral education program designed to teach skills in clinical and translational science, using scholar publication rates as a measure of research productivity.

Participants included 70 clinical fellows who were admitted to a master’s or certificate training program in clinical and translational science from 1999 to 2015 and 70 matched control peers. The primary outcomes were the number of publications 5 years post-fellowship matriculation and time to publishing 15 peer-reviewed manuscripts post-matriculation.

Clinical and translational science program graduates published significantly more peer-reviewed manuscripts at 5 years post-matriculation (median 8 vs 5, p=0.041) and had a faster time to publication of 15 peer-reviewed manuscripts (matched hazard ratio = 2.91, p=0.002). Additionally, program graduates’ publications yielded a significantly higher average H-index (11 vs. 7, p=0.013).

These findings support the effectiveness of formal training programs in clinical and translational science by increasing academic productivity.