SDSU’s HealthLINK Receives $22 Million NIH Grant to Support Underserved Populations

San Diego State University’s HealthLINK Center has been awarded a $22 million National Institute of Health grant in order to support pilot projects “aimed at addressing the well-being of the region’s most underserved populations,” the university announced Wednesday.

The funding will support SDSU and SDSU Imperial Valley health research and services through March 2029.

SDSU officials said a $19.9 million award from the NIH in 2018 was crucial in creating the HealthLINK Center and was part of NIH efforts to fund research at minority-serving institutions.

At the time, it represented the second largest grant ever awarded to SDSU in its history.

“To secure the founding grant in 2018 from the public-funding leader in biomedical research represented a belief in SDSU’s expertise and capabilities,” SDSU President Adela de la Torre said in a statement.

“Securing this second, even larger NIH grant underscores that the HealthLINK Center has delivered significant benefit to these underserved communities in the six years since.”

Projects funded by the grant, which will be expanded upon by the latest round of funding, include a study on trichomoniasis (the most common non-viral sexually transmitted infection in the world) and its effects on the female reproductive tract, the sewage and industrial waste contamination in the Tijuana River Estuary and its effects on children’s health, and a study on an intervention program for children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

City News Service contributed to this report.