Request for Letters of Intent | Building Trust: Advancing Health Equity Grant Program

Applications can be submitted by any resident, fellow or faculty member in internal medicine, except for those who:

• Are an employee or governance member of one of the sponsoring organizations or
• Are a member of the review committee for the grant program.

We encourage applications from individuals at institutions that have previously received a grant under this program, to:

• Build on their previous work and
• Help ensure programs are embedded in their institutions and/or spread to other institutions

The sponsors are interested in funding two categories of projects:

• Education-driven proposals that focus on providing training, skill and competency acquisition with the goal of promoting trustworthiness by reducing health disparities
• Proposals that focus on engineering care delivery to promote trustworthiness and health equity

A non-exhaustive list of the kinds of projects that could be funded under this program include:

• Training programs that incorporate health equity, particularly those that employ inter-professional education best practices
• Innovative curricular approaches to teaching about health equity
• Approaches that foster and support pathways into medicine, the health professions, and faculty and leadership positions by reducing barriers to entry for individuals from a variety of backgrounds
• Mentorship programs
• Projects to enhance diagnostic excellence and address diagnostic gaps that exacerbate health inequity
• Ideas on building trustworthiness and psychological safety among teams
• Innovative approaches to create collaborative partnerships between health systems and community-based service organizations in under-resourced communities
• Projects that foster trust and a sense of belonging within inter-professional groups that include individuals from a variety of backgrounds
• Projects that relate to the intersection between Artificial Intelligence and health equity

Projects will be evaluated based on the:

• Novelty and innovativeness of the proposed intervention
• Feasibility and potential impact, and description of the approach that will be used to evaluate quantitative (e.g., change in resident knowledge) and qualitative outcomes (e.g., evidence of trust building)
• Presence of intentional focus on building trust and health equity
• Replicability and scalability
• A focus on achieving lasting change in the applicant’s institution(s)
• Proposed utilization of relationships with community organizations
• Integration of multiple disciplines on project team
• Project leaders’ ability and commitment to communicate about their project to external audiences
• Support in existing literature/evidence

Note: Throughout the project, grantees will have the opportunity to receive advice through individual and group consultations. Grantees will be expected to participate in a learning network that will meet virtually approximately six times annually and to submit their work for presentation and/or publication during and at the completion of the project. To support this some additional funding may be made available for travel to conferences and/or publication costs.

• Grants of up to $40,000 will be awarded under this program.
• Grants are for a two-year duration and should begin on or aroundJanuary 15, 2026.
• Please specify your desired level of funding in your letter of intent.