title: Accelerators: Sparking Innovation and Transdisciplinary Team Science in Disparities Research.
abstract: Development and implementation of effective, sustainable, and scalable interventions that advance equity could be propelled by innovative and inclusive partnerships. Readied catalytic frameworks that foster communication, collaboration, a shared vision, and transformative translational research across scientific and non-scientific divides are needed to foster rapid generation of novel solutions to address and ultimately eliminate disparities. To achieve this, we transformed and expanded a community-academic board into a translational science board with members from public, academic and private sectors. Rooted in team science, diverse board experts formed topic-specific "accelerators", tasked with collaborating to rapidly generate new ideas, questions, approaches, and projects comprising patients, advocates, clinicians, researchers, funders, public health and industry leaders. We began with four accelerators-digital health, big data, genomics and environmental health-and were rapidly able to respond to funding opportunities, transform new ideas into clinical and community programs, generate new, accessible, actionable data, and more efficiently and effectively conduct research. This innovative model has the power to maximize research quality and efficiency, improve patient care and engagement, optimize data democratization and dissemination among target populations, contribute to policy, and lead to systems changes needed to address the root causes of disparities.
authors.affiliation: Center for Health Equity and Community Engaged Research, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029, USA. carol.horowitz@mssm.edu.|Department of Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029, USA. carol.horowitz@mssm.edu.
authors.forename: Carol R
authors.initials: CR
authors.lastname: Horowitz
authors.affiliation: Department of Genetics and Genomic Sciences, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029, USA. shameer.khader@mssm.edu.|Department of Genetics and Genomic Sciences, Institute of Next Generation Healthcare, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029, USA. shameer.khader@mssm.edu.
authors.forename: Khader
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Shameer
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029, USA. janice.gabrilove@mssm.edu.
authors.forename: Janice
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Gabrilove
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029, USA. ashish.atreja@mssm.edu.
authors.forename: Ashish
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Atreja
authors.affiliation: WE ACT for Environmental Justice, New York, NY 10031, USA. peggy@weact.org.
authors.forename: Peggy
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Shepard
authors.affiliation: Center for Health Equity and Community Engaged Research, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029, USA. crispin.goytia@mountsinai.org.
authors.forename: Crispin N
authors.initials: CN
authors.lastname: Goytia
authors.affiliation: Digitalis Ventures, New York, NY 10036, USA. gws16@mac.com.
authors.forename: Geoffrey W
authors.initials: GW
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.affiliation: Department of Genetics and Genomic Sciences, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029, USA. joel.dudley@mssm.edu.|Department of Genetics and Genomic Sciences, Institute of Next Generation Healthcare, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029, USA. joel.dudley@mssm.edu.
authors.forename: Joel
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Dudley
authors.affiliation: Fordham Law School, New York, NY 10023, USA. rjmanning8@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Rachel
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Manning
authors.affiliation: Center for Health Equity and Community Engaged Research, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029, USA. nina.bickell@mssm.edu.|Department of Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029, USA. nina.bickell@mssm.edu.
authors.forename: Nina A
authors.initials: NA
authors.lastname: Bickell
authors.affiliation: Center for Health Equity and Community Engaged Research, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029, USA. maida.galvez@mssm.edu.|Department of Environmental Medicine and Public Heath, Department of Pediatrics, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029, USA. maida.galvez@mssm.edu.
authors.forename: Maida P
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: Galvez
mesh_terms: D035843:Biomedical Research / Q000458:organization & administration*; D003142:Communication; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D017408:Guidelines as Topic; D006801:Humans; D033181:Information Dissemination / Q000379:methods*; D007400:Interprofessional Relations; D017146:Models, Organizational; D009937:Organizational Objectives; D012108:Research Personnel / Q000523:psychology*; D057170:Translational Research, Biomedical / Q000379:methods*; D014481:United States
keywords: accelerator; big data; community engagement; digital health; disparities; environmental health; genomics; team science; translational research