Schools of medicine and social work researchers received a $5M NIH grant

The University of Pittsburgh’s schools of medicine and social work have been awarded a $5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to test the effectiveness of the Racial Equity Consciousness Institute (RECI), an effort aimed at addressing systemic racism.

The funding will support the growth of a powerful, life-changing program, according to Doris Rubio, the director of Pitt’s Institute for Clinical Research Education and one of the key figures involved with the study and grant application process.

“One of the things I'm most excited about this study is to be able to generate evidence of the effectiveness of RECI,” said Rubio, who is also an assistant vice chancellor for clinical research education and training for the schools of the health sciences. “I think talking to people about it and how it’s changed my life is one thing, but being able to say ‘we have evidence that this works’ is super compelling.”

The research funded by this grant will focus on identifying the effectiveness of RECI training and other implicit bias trainings on diversity and retention as well as on attitudes that perpetuate systemic racism in healthcare outcomes, particularly among marginalized communities.

The outcomes of the interventions will be measured through questionnaires and functional brain imaging, or fMRIs, to look for structural brain changes before and after the intervention. This randomized trial will involve participants from 30 different schools, including Duke University, the University of Alabama and the University of Michigan.

Ron Idoko, associate director of the center on race and social problems, founded the institute in 2021 and brought it tothe Center for Race and Social Problems in Pitt’s School of Social Work. He developed RECI over several years conducting anti-bias trainings through his previous position as program coordinator for Pitt’s Office for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion.

Central to RECI’s approach is the racial equity consciousness framework, which guides participants through a structured process of understanding and addressing the multifaceted nature of racism.

The training is an offshoot of a widely used and evidence-based intervention called cognitive behavioral therapy, and gives participants the reflective and communicative tools they need to engage in meaningful and sustained efforts toward racial equity.

These skills are cultivated through a series of intensive workshops that, in part, guide participants through the origins of the concept of race and introduce data-supported examples of the impacts of the concept throughout various social systems.

Then, the workshop teaches participants to use that grounded understanding to develop and embody equity-conscious behaviors including examining racial identity, addressing racial biases, building racial empathy, embracing racial diversity, gauging racial inequities, fostering racial healing and identifying opportunities to champion racial justice.