By Diane Swanbrow
News and Information Services
The Center for Human Growth and Development has received a three-year, $900,000 grant from the Fogarty International Center of the National Institutes of Health. The grant will fund international research conducted abroad by U-M’s minority faculty and students.
Nine faculty, 18 graduate students and 18 undergraduates will conduct research on child health and development in collaboration with foreign investigators. Their work will be done at the Institute of Nutrition and Food Technology in Santiago, Chile; the Institute of Psychology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, China; and the Instituto Boliviano de Biologia de Altura in La Paz, Bolivia.
African American, Hispanic American, Native American and Pacific Islands faculty and students are eligible for the grant program.
Prof. Betsy Lozoff, behavioral pediatrician and director of the Center for Human Growth and Development, is the grant’s co-principal investigator with psychology Prof. Vonnie McLoyd, a research scientist at the Center for Human Growth and Development. Center members Andres R. Frisancho, professor of anthropology, and Harold W. Stevenson, professor of psychology, will serve as liaisons with the Bolivian and Chinese sites, where they are engaged in collaborations with foreign investigators. Lozoff will serve as liaison with the Chilean institution, where she is conducting research on iron deficiency anemia and infant behavior.
“Collaboration at the international level between biomedical and behavioral scientists is critical for research on children’s health and development,” notes Lozoff. “Among the issues this program will investigate are nutritional deficiencies, low birthweight and other perinatal problems, poor school achievement, family stress and other problems that disproportionately affect children in developing countries, and children living in poverty in the United States.
“In providing international research opportunities for minority students and
