Established in 1970, Family Health Centers of San Diego (FHCSD) is one of the country’s largest Federally Qualified Health Centers, servicing 49 clinics throughout San Diego County. The mission of FHCSD is to increase access to quality healthcare to low-income and medically underserved populations. In October 2019, FHCSD launched the Laura Rodriguez Research Institute to ensure that health innovation engages and benefits the uninsured, low income, and medically underserved population.
Research Collaboration Guidelines
FHCSD has Research Collaboration Guidelines, a Research Interest Form, and a process for submitting research interest requests.
Please review the Research Guidelines located Here.
Please print and fill out the Research Interest form located Here and the Addendum located Here.
Return proposal request and supplemental information to the FHCSD Department of LRRI Team at LRRI@fhcsd.org
For more information
To learn more our about Partner Organization, click HERE.
Job Godino
Dr. Godino is the scientific director of the Laura Rodriguez Research Institute and the director of quality improvement and innovation at Family Health Centers of San Diego (FHCSD). His research, largely funded by the National Institutes of Health, focuses on developing and evaluating interventions using mobile and wearable technology to promote healthy changes in physical activity, sedentary behavior, diet and sleep. In addition, Dr. Godino leads pragmatic quality improvement research efforts within the primary care setting. These efforts are designed to enhance patient care and population health outcomes by integrating evidence-based practices and innovative technologies into everyday clinical workflows. His projects often involve close collaboration with operational leaders, health care providers and patients to ensure that the interventions are effective and sustainable in real-world settings. By focusing on pragmatic research, Dr. Godino aims to bridge the gap between research findings and actual clinical practice, ultimately improving the quality of care delivered to patients.
Dr. Godino holds a B.A. in anthropology and an M.S. in epidemiology from Temple University, and a Ph.D. in epidemiology from the University of Cambridge. He completed his postdoctoral training in the epidemiology and biostatistics of aging at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Godino is also an associate research scientist at UC San Diego’s Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science. He directs the Exercise and Physical Activity Resource Center (EPARC), a university recharge unit specializing in deep phenotyping. Dr. Godino will serve as the Principal Investigator in this collaboration with the SDSU HealthLINK Center.
Jane Samaniego
Jane Samaniego is the associate director of the Laura Rodriguez Research Institute (LRRI) at Family Health Centers of San Diego (FHCSD). She initially joined LRRI as a program manager leading research studies that are integrated within FHCSD clinics. Jane’s current role has her focusing on streamlining operations and implementing strategic plans to maintain organizational effectiveness across LRRI. In addition, she will be serving as the administrative coordinator from FHCSD to support the Scientist in Residency program in collaboration with SDSU HealthLINK Center.
Jane earned her B.S. in information systems from SDSU and her M.S. in health care informatics from the University of San Diego. As a certified project management professional, she holds over 10 years of experience managing projects, providing operational support, and working collaboratively across organizations on research projects. Jane is not only an alumna of SDSU but also a native South Bay San Diegan, who is committed to supporting and operationalizing meaningful research that improves the health and well-being of her community.
Amanda McClain, PhD, MS
Scientist in Residence
My research program seeks to understand the biobehavioral pathways linking food insecurity to chronic disease and to address food insecurity and limited food access as a lever for improving dietary intake and preventing and reducing poor cardiometabolic health. Specifically, I use population science (e.g., cohort data) and community-engaged research methods, including mixed methods (quantitative and qualitative data), to answer real-world/applied research questions. For example, many of my research projects are centered on understanding the day-to-day intricacies of providing a household with enough nutritious and culturally relevant food, including the food shopping and food preparation strategies that households employ to ensure food security. Understanding this lived experience informs the development of feasible interventions that make the daily food provisioning responsibilities easier, less stressful, and more sustainable over time for low-income and working-class households, while also improving their dietary quality and health. I also work closely with community-based organizations, in a scientific advisory role, to help them fulfill their mission and achieve their goal of promoting food security and health equity in their communities. My long-term research goal is to promote cardiometabolic health equity and healthy life trajectories of historically marginalized populations by using health and social science perspectives to:
- Understand how the stress of marginalization, especially food insecurity and food access issues, shape food choice and dietary intake and ‘get under the skin’ to impact allostatic load and cardiometabolic risk, primarily among Hispanic/Latino households, and
- Identify and leverage existing social, material, human, and cultural capacities (i.e., assets), as a part of multi-level, behavior-change interventions embedded in existing infrastructure (e.g., federally qualified health centers, food assistance programs), to mitigate the stress of marginalization and promote food security and healthy behaviors (nutritious diets and physical activity)
For the SDSU HealthLINK Center Community Engagement Core – Family Health Centers of San Diego Scientist-in-Residence Program, my goals are to:
- Better understand the clinical pathways for FHCSD patients diagnosed with prediabetes, type 2 diabetes, and hypertension.
- Discern the different programs offered through FHCSD to address nutrition-related behaviors and chronic disease, as well as social determinants of health.
- Gain knowledge and experience with FHCSD’s Electronic Health Record (EHR) system.
As a result of participating in the Scientist-in-Residence program, I propose to develop the following products:
- Develop concept map outlining clinical pathways and programs for patients with prediabetes, type 2 diabetes, hypertension; and programs to address SDOH (specifically food insecurity).
- Document of EHR components and data elements relevant to the population and research area and summarize relevant EHR data, if applicable.
Develop priority research questions and funding mechanisms for future grant applications.