Teams and Projects
U-TuRN brings together expertise from a diverse array of interdisciplinary research teams that share a commitment to translational health needs. U-TuRN is set up as four Interdisciplinary Teams working collaboratively to build a transdisciplinary network focused on translational health issues. Each Team brings unique and complementary skills, expertise, and resources to the Network and this has enabled us to collaborate on larger, more coordinated and more impactful translational research efforts. Collectively, we focus on four complementary objectives (Engaging Communities, Impacting Health, Advancing Science and Changing Systems). Descriptions of the four Teams and targeted research questions are provided below.
COMMUNITY HEALTH SYSTEMS AND WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT
Team 1 works to extend and refine previously developed translation science models, workforce training methods, and evaluation strategies to support community health research in different settings and populations and for multiple behaviors. Their work is aligned with several guiding priority areas of investigation, including: Designing and evaluating community-based prevention workforce development models Exploring factors that…
View MoreINTERVENTION DEVELOPMENT, TESTING, AND TRAINING
Team 2 facilitates the development and utilization of effective behavior change interventions and techniques in various translational research applications coordinated through the Network. Their work is directed by several guiding research questions, including: How can we effectively use behavior change tools (e.g., Motivational Interviewing, mHealth, and habit development strategies) to guide adoption and long-term adherence…
View MoreHEALTH SYSTEMS MONITORING AND EVALUATION
Team 3 builds user-friendly tools to enable merging, manipulating, and visualization of disparate sources of data to help a wide array of stakeholders (academic researchers, community residents, policy makers, health organizations) make decisions that improve community health. The work of Team 3 aligns with the general premise that access to data can improve decision-making, and…
View MoreCOMMUNITY OUTREACH AND ENGAGEMENT
Team 4 promotes community engagement and establishes methods to build participatory relationships with community partners to help address the Network’s overall transdisciplinary goals of integrating science with practice. The work of Team 4 is connected to several guiding research questions, including: How do community engagement strategies build capacity to sustain vision? How can environmental barriers…
View More