Writing Accountability Groups Are a Tool for Academic Success: The Obesity Health Disparities PRIDE Program

The current hypercompetitive extramural funding environment in the United States emphasizes the critical need for effective research training programs that focus not only on grantsmanship, but on skill development across the full range of research activities, culminating in writing research results for publication. Using Writing Accountability Groups (WAG), the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) funded Obesity Health Disparities (OHD) PRIDE is one of the few research training and mentoring programs that places an equal focus on scientific writing and grant writing. This article reports on the utility of WAGs for OHD PRIDE mentees.