STEPPT DPT Funding

Drs. Katrina Monroe and Sara Gombatto, Professors in the Doctor of Physical Therapy Program at SDSU, have been awarded a $2.8M grant from the NIH for their study, Salud de Tu Espalda Primary care to Physical Therapy (STEPPT). This project is a collaboration with Family Health Centers of San Diego, one of the country's largest Federally Qualified Health Centers with embedded physical therapy services. The STEPPT study aims to mitigate ethnic disparities in physical therapy management for spine pain by addressing barriers to physical therapy access and engagement for Hispanic/Latino patients across multiple domains of influence along the continuum of care. STEPPT will help to establish best practices for the delivery of scalable interventions to reduce ethnic disparities in pain management that can serve as a model for FQHCs and other healthcare systems.