The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and Cherokee Health Systems will receive $650,000 to grow their research-practice partnership, with a focus on improving maternal and child health for Black families in East Tennessee.
UT and CHS secured the funding as winners of the 2024 Institutional Challenge Grant competition, which encourages university-based research institutes, schools, and centers to grow existing research-practice partnerships with public agencies or nonprofit organizations to reduce inequality in youth outcomes. The funding is provided by trustees of the William T. Grant Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, the Doris Duke Foundation, and the Bezos Family Foundation.
UT has a long history of working with CHS, a federally qualified health center that provides outpatient services to more than 65,000 Tennesseans annually.
“As far as we know, we are the only academic partnership with a federally qualified health center,” said Kristina Gordon, associate dean for community engagement for both the College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences and the College of Social Work. “FQHCs frequently work with underresourced populations who are also underrepresented in health care research. Developing a strong research-practice partnership with CHS will allow us to generate more research that addresses health care inequity.”