Application

We acknowledge that the list of criteria as provided by the NIH for program reporting may not fully represent one's life experiences as being disadvantaged. Individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds, defined as those who meet two or more of the following criteria:

1. Were or currently are homeless? (As defined by the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act: https://nche.ed.gov/mckinney-vento/)
2. Were or currently are in the foster care system? (As defined by the Administration for Children and Families: https://www.acf.hhs.gov/cb/focus-areas/foster-care)
3. Were eligible for the Federal Free and Reduced Lunch Program for two or more years? (Definition: https://www.fns.usda.gov/school-meals/income-eligibility-guidelines)
4. Have/had no parents or legal guardians who completed a bachelor’s degree? (See https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2018/2018009.pdf)
5. Were or currently are eligible for Federal Pell grants? (Definition: https://www2.ed.gov/programs/fpg/eligibility.html)
6. Received support from the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) as a parent or child? (Definition: https://www.fns.usda.gov/wic/wic-eligibility-requirements)
7. Grew up in one of the following areas:
   1. a U.S. rural area, as designated by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Rural Health Grants Eligibility Analyzer (https://data.hrsa.gov/tools/rural-health)
   2. or a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services-designated Low-Income and Health Professional Shortage Areas  (qualifying zip codes are included in the file).
   3. Only one of the two possibilities in #7 can be used as a criterion for the disadvantaged background definition.
8. Students from low socioeconomic (SES) status backgrounds have been shown to obtain bachelor’s and advanced degrees at significantly lower rates than students from middle and high SES groups (see https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_tva.asp), and are subsequently less likely to be represented in biomedical research. For background see Department of Education data at https://nces.ed.gov/; https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_tva.asp; https://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/research/pubs/advancing-diversity-inclusion.pdf.)