A program in women’s health research at the community-based outpatient clinic for veterans on the UMass Chan Medical School campus is improving care for women veterans while strengthening a career path for future health care providers and researchers.
The VA Summer Research Program at the VA Central Western Massachusetts Healthcare System and UMass Chan has recently been funded for five additional years by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development.
“The VA Summer Research Program provides students with the opportunity to learn about critical issues impacting women veterans’ health, with a focus on maternal health,” said Kristin Mattocks, PhD, MPH, professor of population & quantitative health sciences, associate dean for veterans affairs and program director for VA Central Western Massachusetts Healthcare System and UMass Chan. “We focus on training our students in both quantitative and qualitative research skills that can be used to further understand how to improve health care access, utilization and outcomes for women veterans. Furthermore, we focus on providing our students with educational and career mentorship, which is a critical need for young women as they launch their careers.”
The goal is to enhance the diversity of the biomedical, behavioral, rehabilitative and clinical research workforce by providing research experiences to undergraduate and health professional students from diverse backgrounds, including those from groups nationally underrepresented in the biomedical, clinical, behavioral, rehabilitative and social sciences, she said.
The program was created in 2022 to strengthen and diversify the VA scientific workforce. The research program at UMass Chan is the only site of 25 nationally that is solely focused on women’s health. Participants Michaela Ayisi, a UMass Amherst student, and Akila Sanjay, a recent University of Pittsburgh graduate, are helping Dr. Mattocks write a paper on doula care in the VA.
“I kept coming back because I really value the mentorship that I got out of this program,” Sanjay said. “Continuing to build off what I did the year before is really helping me get to where I want to go, which is ultimately medical school.”
UMass Chan MD/PhD student Laël Nethania Ngangmeni, MBS, participated in the first two years of the program and then applied what she learned to her dissertation research, which is centered around the quality of VA maternity care and obstetric care experiences.
“As a Black woman planning to become an OB-GYN, maternal and child health are topics very close to my heart,” Ngangmeni said. “A significant proportion of women veterans are women of color. During the VA Summer Research Program, I learned how racial disparities in pregnancy outcomes persist among veterans even with improved access to health care and maternity care coordination.”
The 2024 program featured several guest speakers, including Terence R. Flotte, MD, the Celia and Isaac Haidak Professor, executive deputy chancellor, provost and dean of the T.H. Chan School of Medicine, who answered questions about the medical school application process and gave the interns a tour of UMass Chan’s learning communities.
Other speakers included Lawrence M. Rhein, MD, MPH, the Stoddard Chair of Pediatrics, and chair and associate professor of pediatrics; Tiffany Moore Simas, MD’00, MPH, MEd, the Donna M. and Robert J. Manning Chair in Obstetrics and Gynecology, chair and professor of obstetrics & gynecology, and professor of pediatrics, psychiatry and population & quantitative health sciences; and Carolyn Clancy, MD’79, assistant under secretary for health for discovery, education and affiliate networks for Veterans Affairs.
“The VA Summer Research Program at UMass Chan is an outstanding example of how the VA’s 78-year partnership with its academic affiliates remains laser-focused on health care’s future,” Dr. Clancy said. “By providing an educational bridge between our two institutions, the program not only helps ready the next generation of VA clinician researchers, but ensures our historic and enduring ties.”
