Dear Colleague,

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This month we have updates about the Precision Medicine Advisory Council’s Data Integration Working Group, the announcement of three more ACEs projects, and a selected list of events and funding opportunities within the precision medicine space.

In partnership,
The CIAPM team
Call For Experts in Data Integration and Social Determinants of Health
There is enormous momentum in California, as well as across the nation, to uplift Social Determinants of Health (SDOHs) alongside biological determinants as critical data that can be stored in electronic health records (EHRs) to inform clinical decision-making and enhance quality of care. Decades of evidence linking socioeconomic circumstances to health outcomes have guided the development of sophisticated strategies to better tailor prevention and responsiveness to underlying conditions like food insecurity, housing instability, and poor access to health care that drive illness and disability. Rather than perpetually treating the symptoms of poor health, a system built upon principles of precision medicine detects and addresses the root causes, physiological or otherwise.
Social Determinants of Health (SDOH): The conditions in which people are born, live, learn, work, play, and age that affect a wide range of health risks and outcomes, and are responsible for most health inequities, and the forces and systems that shape daily life, including economic policies and systems, development agendas, social norms, social policies, and political systems.
–Working group definition of SDOH, based on language from the CDC, WHO, and The Gravity Project
In November 2020, the California Precision Medicine Advisory Council held a vote to determine which issues in the field of precision medicine they would address via two working groups. The highest ranked priority was to address challenges of integrating SDOH data into EHRs in a way that maximized clinical utility. Since the Data Integration Working Group’s first meeting in February 2021, they have workshopped and finalized a definition for SDOH, devised general goals and a roadmap for a project, and initiated a landscape analysis to understand SDOH integration efforts in California, other states, and at the federal level.
SDOH CDC
In additional to biological factors, social factors such as health care access, physical environment, community, education, and economic stability drive health risks and outcomes. Image Source: Healthy People 2030, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. Retrieved 7-19-21, from https://health.gov/healthypeople/objectives-and-data/social-determinants-health
In Sacramento, the Department of Health Care Services launched California Advancing and Innovating Medi-Cal (CalAIM), a multi-year initiative to better address SDOH and elevate whole-person care outcomes. The California Health and Human Services Agency has also invested in a new interdepartmental collaboration called the Center for Data Innovation and Insight, which will support CalAIM and many other state efforts. In May, CIAPM also officially joined The Gravity Project, a national network supporting the standardization of SDOH data types and driving progress in the field.

The Data Integration Working Group is chaired by Hakan Sakul, PhD, who is a Vice President and Head of Diagnostics at Pfizer. Eight other CIAPM Advisors participate in the working group, which hosts public meetings every other month, and we encourage anyone who is interested to attend. The next meeting is scheduled for September.

If you or a colleague would like to offer expertise in the areas of SDOH and/or EHR data integration to inform CIAPM’s ongoing landscape analysis, project scoping, and potential pilot projects, please reach out at ciapm@opr.ca.gov.
Programmatic Updates
Three New ACEs Projects Announced
The 2021-22 California State Budget, signed by Governor Newsom on June 28, 2021, expands the State's investment in precision medicine research to drive progress in preventing and treating Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). CIAPM will distribute an additional $12.4 million to ACEs research projects across the state, bringing the total investment in ACEs research to over $20 million. The newly allocated funds will support three more competitively selected, collaborative demonstration projects, building on the first round of four awards announced by CIAPM in March 2021. Each research team is co-led by an academic research institution and one or more community- or county-based organizations that serve individuals with ACEs.

The three new awardees are listed below. Summaries, leadership teams, and research partners for all seven projects are posted on our website.
Systems-based, Multidisciplinary Assessment of Adversity and Toxic Stress for Individualized Care (The SYSTEMAATIC Project). Stanford University; Center for Youth Wellness; UCSF; San Mateo County Health; Central Valley Community Foundation

Lead Principal Investigator: Dr. Sayantani Sindher, Stanford University
Tina Sindher
Sayantani Sindher, MD
Identifying Social, Molecular, & Immunological Processes for Mitigating Toxic Stress & Enhancing Personalized Resilience. UCLA; Stanford University; UC Berkeley; UCSF; Burnham Benefits; University of Palo Alto; UC Health; Los Angeles County Department of Health Services

Lead Principal Investigator: Dr. George Slavich, UCLA
George Slavich
George Slavich, PhD
San Diego County, UC San Diego, & Community Partners Better Address ACEs with Precision Medicine & Organizational Change. UC San Diego; San Diego County Behavioral Health Services; Family Health Centers of San Diego; San Diego County Childhood Obesity Initiative; San Diego Promotores Coalition; Streetwyze; Olivewood Gardens and Learning Center, Kitchenistas; American Academy of Pediatrics, CA Chapter 3; University of San Diego; San Diego State University; YMCA of San Diego County

Lead Principal Investigator: Dr. Gary Firestein, UC San Diego
Gary Firestein
Gary S. Firestein, MD
Capitol Collaborative on Race and Equity 
CIAPM is participating in the Capitol Collaborative on Race and Equity (CCORE), a 14-month racial equity capacity-building program for government employees. The CCORE cohort met in July for an information exchange. Participants were paired with representatives from another state agency to present their organization’s initial Racial Equity Tool findings, take questions, and receive feedback.

The Racial Equity Tool is designed to integrate explicit consideration of racial equity in decisions, including policies, practices, programs, and budgets. It is used by public agencies like the San Francisco Department of Public Health, City of Long Beach, and Seattle Public Schools.

External Research Opportunities Webpage
In every newsletter, we include a list of research and funding opportunities from outside sources. To serve a wider audience, we are now also featuring this content on our website.
California Precision Medicine Advisory Council
The Equitable Consent Working Group will meet on Thursday, August 12, 2021 at 1:30 p.m. The meeting materials will be posted to our Meetings page; register for the meeting here.

The full Advisory Council will meet on Friday, August 20, 2021, at 9:00 a.m. The meeting materials will be posted on our Meetings page; register for the meeting here.
External Events
August 30, 2021 – September 2, 2021
This conference from the International Network for Government Science Advice will be an opportunity to examine the direct and indirect lessons from the pandemic, while looking to the future for the global community as it builds back.

September 14, 2021
Hosted by the Department of Biomedical Informatics at Harvard Medical School, this virtual conference will provide expert-led discussions of how identity is used in care and how to best advance precision medicine for all populations. As in the past several years, there will be an emphasis on elevating the patient voice and building patient engagement.

September 19, 2021
Telehealth and digital medicine are here. This conference will cover a broad range of topics across telemedicine and digital health, including display capabilities for doctors, tools for multi-participant meetings, coverage by payers, and more.

September 23, 2021 – September 24, 2021
Topics include implementation barriers to pharmacogenomics and newborn sequencing, updates on population scale genomic initiatives, development of liquid biopsies, artificial intelligence and learning health systems, and more. CIAPM Co-Director Dr. Shannon Muir will speak about CIAPM’s work and the importance of community engagement in research. 
External Research Opportunities
NIH’s AIM-AHEAD program will establish mutually beneficial and coordinated partnerships to increase the participation and representation of researchers and communities currently underrepresented in the development of AI/ML models, beginning with electronic health record data.
Letters of intent due July 22, 2021

This initiative will support observational or intervention research to understand and address the impact of structural racism and discrimination on minority health and health disparities. Projects must address structural racism and discrimination in one or more NIH-designated populations with health disparities in the US and should address documented disparities in health outcomes.
Applications due August 24, 2021

This Funding Opportunity Announcement invites cooperative agreement applications for the NNLM All of Us Program Center (NAPC). NAPC will combine two main functions of training and education, and community engagement into one organizational structure. These two functional areas will coordinate resources to design, deliver, and evaluate programs and services.
Applications due September 17, 2021

This funding opportunity seeks applicants for proof-of-concept testing and development of new technologies and novel approaches for recording and modulation of cells and networks to enable transformative understanding of dynamic signaling in the central nervous system.
Rolling submissions, first available October 29, 2021