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40 Undergraduate Health Disparities Research Scholars Finish Their Summer at Penn

Week-Long Event Marks 25th Anniversary of LDI/Wharton School Program

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Some of this year’s 40 scholars with (bottom row): Joanne Levy, Founding Director of the SUMR program; Wharton School Dean Erika H. James; Deputy Dean Nancy Rothbard; and SUMR Faculty Director, Claudio Lucarelli. (Photo: Hoag Levins) Click for larger.

Twenty-five years after it was established as a joint Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics and Wharton School Health Care Management Department program aimed at attracting students interested in health disparities research into advanced health care degree studies, the Summer Undergraduate Mentored Research (SUMR) program ended its quarter-century anniversary year with a week-long seminar spotlighting the scholar’s projects.

A Quarter Century

“Looking back 25 years since Mark Pauly and I began this as a program that we hoped would work, it’s still amazing to me to see how much it has grown and how many of its participants have gone on to incredible careers in health care. I can’t say enough about how enriching it has been to have had the support of the Wharton School, LDI, and hundreds of Penn faculty members who devote so much of their time and energy to mentoring these students,” said Joanne Levy, Founding Director of the SUMR Program, LDI Director of Student Initiatives, and Associate Director of Wharton’s PhD Program in Health Economics.

The SUMR program includes ten scholars from its offshoot program Get Experience in Aging Research Undergraduate program (GEAR UP), and an additional two students from the Penn LDI Dental Summer Health Services Research Fellowship program.

Health Disparities Research

Scholars are mostly undergraduates from universities and colleges across the country who are immersed in a special health care management curriculum and paired with Penn faculty mentors on real research projects. This year, 40 students from 26 schools are involved in research focused heavily on health and health care disparities and advancing the needs of underrepresented groups in health services, population health, and clinical epidemiology. Along with hands-on research, the summer-long program also includes an intense curriculum of lectures by some of the country’s top health services research professors.

At the end, in a five-day marathon of presentations before an auditorium audience of parents and faculty members, each of the 40 scholars deliver a scientific report on the research they were engaged in during the summer. The topics include a broad range of studies such as “Understanding the Association Between Cash Transfer Programs and Health Outcomes in Low- and Middle-Income Countries,” “The Racial and Ethnic Disparity in Genetic Research Databases,” “The Effects of Transitional Housing Programs on Health and Economic Outcomes Among People with HIV: A Systematic Review,” and “Addressing Health-Related Social Needs (HRSN) Screening Processes in the Inpatient Setting: Challenges, Opportunities, and Lessons.”

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