A city park with freshly planted trees
The UAB Center for the Study of Community Health invites applications for its 2025 Community Health Scholars pilot grant program. Funding is for community-based participatory research to address issues connected to health in the community, specifically social determinants of health.
Since 2009, the Center has offered pilot research funding, successfully awarding more than $1 million to 52 projects for UAB faculty. Among the 52 awardees over the last 16 years are faculty from across 25 divisions and departments at UAB, involving more than 60 community partner organizations.
One-year pilot grants are available to UAB faculty with preference given to teams including junior faculty. Pilot funding is intended to provide initial support for innovative projects to benefit our local communities. Proposals from any discipline on campus are encouraged, meeting the following criteria:
- The proposed project can be completed within one year.
- The project demonstrates significant potential for future extramural funding.
- An established community partner actively participates in the development, design, implementation, and evaluation of the project. This must be an active partner, beyond simply being a community advisory board.
Pilot projects are expected to lead to publications related to the project and ultimately to an application for extramural funding.
The Community Health Research Pipeline 2025 streamlines the Community Health Scholars (CHS) pilot program, directly linking interested faculty with the resources from the Center’s community partner, Birmingham United Neighborhoods, and provides direct guidance and mentorship to assure CHS awardee projects perform as efficiently and effectively as possible. All potential projects must focus on a community-based issue or concern and can range from secondary data analysis to focus groups to preliminary data collection to small demonstration projects. Innovative and creative approaches are encouraged and welcome.
Five types of projects are eligible for funding:
- Demonstration projects (typical awards of $20,000 to $35,000): Ready-to-execute projects that address an important issue directly relevant to local Birmingham communities, including social determinants of health.
- Translation projects (typical awards of $20,000 – $35,000): Translation of a previous Community Health Scholars project or another community-based project to Birmingham neighborhoods.
- Preliminary Data projects (typical awards of $5,000 – $10,000): Collection and analysis of quantitative or qualitative data that would lead to either a CHS project or extramural funding in the following year.
- Program Evaluation projects (typical awards of $5,000 – $10,000): Evaluation of community-based programs.
An initial informational meeting with interested applicants is for February 7 at 11:00 a.m. at the Titusville Development Corporation office across from the Center for the Study of Community Health located at 400 Iota Avenue South. Please indicate interest in applying for funding (a short email of interest and attending the informational meeting is all that is needed) to Dr. Max Michael at maxm@uab.edu or Dr. Jeff Walker at jeffw@uab.edu before February 5. At that meeting, the process for application, requirements for successful completion of the project and opportunities for mentoring will be discussed.
