Overall, my work has to do with building community / academic partnerships with populations that experience health disparities. Currently my research involves to related topics. These are:
-Innovations to promote diversity in research participation. This is the foundation of a recently awarded R21 from the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI 1 R21 MD015130), Feasibility of an Innovative Method to Understand the Dynamics of Choice and Create Diversity in Genomics Research among Older African Americans as well as a supplement award from the National Institute on Aging (P30AG062715-02S1), Maximizing Components of Trustworthiness in the Decision to Participate Preclinical Alzheimer’s Disease Research Involving Lumbar Puncture.
– Community-engaged COVID-19 vaccine confidence promotion. I have recently been afforded opportunities to work with Wisconsin communities in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. I lead a collaboration between the Collaborative Center for Health Equity, the Wisconsin Primary Health Care Association (WPHCA), and the School of Journalism and Mass Communication to understand and address COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among their providers/staff and patients of WI Federally Qualified Health Centers (ICTR/WPP pilot). This work has subsequently resulted in an additional project funded by the CDC through the UW Prevention Research Center, to implement additional interventions (social media messaging and outreach) to promote vaccine uptake in rural southwestern Wisconsin.
Finally, I also oversee the Building Trust educational program, supported by the UW Institute for Clinical and Translational Research, which is designed to build the capacity of researchers and research teams to ethically and effectively engage communities typically underrepresented in research.