Bridgette L. Jones, MD, MSCR
Marion Merrell Dow Endowed Chair in Pediatric Clinical Pharmacology; Assistant Dean, Student Affairs, University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine; Professor of Pediatrics, University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine; Education Associate Professor of Pediatrics, University of Kansas School of Medicine
Full BiographyAnn M. Davis, PhD, MPH
Director, Center for Children's Healthy Lifestyles & Nutrition; Adjunct Associate Professor of Pediatrics, University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine; Professor of Pediatrics, University of Kansas School of Medicine
Full BiographyBridgette Jones, MD, MSCR, Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology, along with Ann Davis, PhD, MPH, ABPP, University of Kansas Medical Center, Director, Center for Children’s Healthy Lifestyles & Nutrition, received a five-year, UG1 grant. The grant is a renewal on an initial five-year award from the Office of the Director at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for their project, “Sunflower Pediatric Clinical Trials (SPeCTr 3.0).” Children’s Mercy received $67,172 from the total amount of $410,437 awarded for the first year. Over the course of five years the project will receive $1,924,003. The grant covers a project period of Sept. 1, 2025-May 31, 2030 (Award No. 2UG1OD024943-08).
Drs. Jones and Davis are using this grant to expand their project's work as one of the top Environmental Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Institutional Development Award (IDeA) States Pediatric Clinical Trials Network (ISPCTN) sites. The project focuses on rural and medically underserved areas in Kansas where children experience worse health and wellbeing compared to children in high-resource areas.
Children in rural areas in Kansas are less likely to be included in clinical trials. Inclusion of these less represented populations in clinical trials will help to improve interventions to address common health concerns and health related disparities. The knowledge from these trials will further lead to overall improved health and wellbeing for children in rural and underserved areas and the pediatric population overall.
For the next five years, Drs. Jones and Davis will collaborate to lead the Kansas SPeCTr site in the conduct of pediatric clinical trials, community engagement to drive trial interest and ideas, capacity building for clinical trials in rural and underserved communities and mentorship of early-stage investigators supported by SPeCTr to grow the pediatric workforce for conducting trials.
“We are excited to continue our work in bringing impactful pediatric clinical trials to the children and families in Kansas and to continue work to support the development of investigators to conduct pediatric clinical trials,” said Dr. Jones. “We believe that this work will be instrumental in addressing the deep health disparities experienced by children in rural and underserved areas.”
Research reported in this release was supported by the Office Of The Director, National Institutes Of Health of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number UG1OD024943.The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.