CSUSB Nursing Department to receive Grant to expand awareness of National Institutes of Health (NIH) Research Program

San Bernardino, CA – Cal State San Bernardino’s Department of Nursing has been selected to receive a prestigious grant from the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) to educate diverse communities about the federal All of Us Research Program, which was created to gather data from U.S. participants to accelerate research and improve health.

CSUSB is one of nine schools (out of more than 1,000 member schools of nursing) chosen for the All of Us Research Program funding. Launched by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the All of Us Research Program seeks to build a national research cohort of 1 million or more participants reflecting the diversity of the United States.

The CSUSB Department of Nursing will host “So This is Precision Medicine!” on Jan. 16, featuring speakers from the AACN who will focus on increasing awareness of the research program and the importance of recruiting historically underrepresented communities in biomedical research (UBR). The event will be from noon to 1 p.m. at the university’s Santos Manuel Student Union Events Center, simulcast to the Palm Desert Campus at HS 106 and streamed live on Facebook.

AACN joined with the NIH to advance the initiative by administering a mini-grants program to facilitate the engagement of the nursing education community with the All of Us Research Program, and in particular, its focus on including UBR members.

Funding received through this program will be used to increase awareness of the program and the importance of participation of UBR members. This initiative uses collaboration between established community partners and nursing schools to disseminate information on the All of Us Research Program.

“The All of Us Research Program is making a real difference in strengthening the nation’s research data repository, and AACN is proud to advance this important effort,” said Dr. Ann Cary, chair of the AACN Board of Directors. “By supporting the All of Us Research Program and expanding the pool of individuals available to participate in critical research initiatives, academic nursing is helping to improve the health of all people in the United States by extending precision medicine to develop more effective ways to treat and prevent disease.”

CSUSB Nursing Department Professor Mary Anne Schultz and full-time lecturer Evangeline Fangonil-Gagalang are the grant’s primary investigators.

Schultz said the All of Us program is aimed at informing, then eventually recruiting, medically underserved populations into biomedical research.

“The All of Us program is embarking upon a national dissemination march to provide scalable educational sessions designed to educate the lay public about the Precision Medicine Initiative (PMI),” Schultz said.

The PMI program is a landmark research effort whose goal is to engage 1 million or more U.S. participants to enable research that will, over time, improve the ability to prevent and treat disease based on individual differences in lifestyle, environment and genetics.

Participants will be invited to contribute a range of data about themselves by completing questionnaires, granting access to their electronic health records, providing blood and urine samples, undergoing a physical evaluation and sharing real-time information via smartphones or wearable devices.

Privacy and security safeguards will protect data collected.

A primary goal of the PMI is to create a national resource for researchers, including citizen scientists, to help answer important questions about a variety of health conditions. When the program opens for enrollment, people may sign up through a participating HPO, or directly using the program website, smartphone application or call center.

To learn more about the All of Us Research Program, visit allofus.nih.gov. Please “like” the event on the “So This Is Precision Medicine” Facebook page at https://tinyurl.com/SoThisIsPrecisionMedicine.

For more information on the Cal State San Bernardino Department of Nursing, visit its website.

About Cal State San Bernardino

California State University, San Bernardino is a preeminent center of intellectual and cultural activity in Inland Southern California. Opened in 1965 and set at the foothills of the beautiful San Bernardino Mountains, the university serves more than 20,000 students each year and graduates about 4,000 students annually. The university offers more than 70 traditional baccalaureate and master’s degree programs, education credential and certificate programs, and a doctorate program in educational leadership. Every one of its academic programs that is eligible has earned national accreditation. CSUSB reflects the dynamic diversity of the region and has the most diverse student population of any university in the Inland Empire. More than 80 percent of those who graduate are the first in their families to do so.