2006
Kellogg Health Scholars, Multidisciplinary Track |
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D.Phuong
(Phoenix) Do completed her Ph.D. in Policy Analysis at RAND Graduate
School. Dr. Do graduated from UCLA with an undergraduate degree in
civil engineering. After serving two years in the Peace Corps as
a Water/Sanitation Volunteer in the Republic of Mali, West Africa
and working at Hughes Spaces and Communications as a structural engineer,
she returned to school and earned an M.Phil. in Policy Analysis from
the RAND Graduate School. Dr. Dos research interests include social
determinants of health, community context, and quantitative methodologies,
with special interest in using longitudinal data to study life-course
and cumulative effects of socioeconomic status and neighborhood context
on health outcomes and disparities. Her dissertation, partially funded
by an NIH pre-doctoral grant, examined the effects of urban organization
-- focusing on racial segregation patterns -- on racial disparities
in adult health and mortality. Dr. Do will be at the University of
Michigan site. | ||||
Gina Evans, Ph.D. |
Dr. Gina L. Evans is a current Kellogg Health Scholar who recent accepted an Assistant Professorship (tenure-track) at the Baylor College of Medicine’s Chronic Disease Prevention and Control Research Center. She holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology with a minor in biology from the University of Indianapolis in Indianapolis Indiana and a master’s degree in Counselor Education and a Doctoral degree in Counseling Psychology from Ball State University in Muncie Indiana. She has 8 years of extensive clinical and research experience in improving mental and physical health outcomes among underserved populations. Much of her prior work was in the areas of coping with depression and anxiety, cultural, psychosocial and behavioral determinants of dietary choices, and health education and promotion. She recently completed a pilot study exploring the utility of a brief culturally appropriate disease self-management intervention among ethnic minority stroke patients in an acute care setting. She is expanding upon this work by exploring patient health outcomes and caregiver levels of anxiety and depression after providing disease management education to caregivers. Through her work with the Eliminating Disparities in Clinical Trials (EDICT) initiative she develops educational workshops that encourage researchers in community and academic settings to adopt culturally appropriate policy recommendations in their clinical trial research. She is also investigating methods to use disease self-management as a tool to improve recruitment, and retention of and outcome for clinical trial participants. Her primary research interests are in the areas of using self-management to improve behavioral and biological chronic disease risk factors, depression and anxiety related health outcomes, and improving clinical trial participation among vulnerable groups. Dr. Evans has publications and manuscripts under review in the areas of: ethnic minority faculty mentoring, racial/ethnic differences in health outcomes, nutrition patterns of ethnic minority women, tobacco usage of ethnic minority children, anxiety and depression in caregivers of ICU patients and chronic disease management in acute care. | ||||
Chandra Ford, Ph.D. |
Dr.
Chandra Ford earned a PhD in Health Behavior and Health Education
with a doctoral level minor in Epidemiology from the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2005. She holds a BS in Applied
Nutrition from the Pennsylvania State University as well as an MPH
in Health Services Administration and a Master’s of Library
and Information Sciences with a concentration in Health Information
both from the University of Pittsburgh. Her research examines relationships
between racial stratification and HIV/AIDS disparities. It involves:
1) multilevel conceptualization and measurement of racism effects;
2) consideration of the intersectionality of race/ethnicity, gender,
sexuality and class; 3) development of a Critical Race Theory framework
for population health research, and; 4) critical examination of the
conventions and underlying assumptions guiding scientific knowledge
production and the implications of these for the socially marginalized
groups disproportionately impacted by HIV/AIDS. Dr. Ford received
a 2005 North Carolina Impact Award for her dissertation research
examining African Americans’ perceived racism, residential
characteristics, and HIV antibody test-taking behavior. From 2005-2006
she was a Carolina Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Social
Medicine at the University of North Carolina. She will continue her
research at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public
Health. | ||||
Angelica P. Herrera, MPH, DrPH |
Dr. Angelica P. Herrera is a Kellogg Health Scholar in Health Disparities at the U.T. M.D. Anderson Cancer Center at the Center for Research on Minority Health. She has 13 years of health promotion and health education experience with medically underserved and ethnic minority communities in the areas of HIV/AIDS, cancer prevention and control, and healthy eating. She holds a Doctorate of Public Health (Dr.P.H.) in Health Education with an emphasis in Health Administration from Loma Linda University, a B.S. in Biochemistry and Cell Biology from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), and an M.P.H. in Epidemiology from the University at Albany, New York. She has recently published work on the cultural influences of long-term care use in Mexican-American elderly, and the role of religiosity on depression and physical health of caregivers. Dr Herrera is currently investigating the availability of family and instrumental support to care of older Mexican-Americans in the home, and the impact of functional decline on their care and living arrangements using the Hispanic Established Populations for Epidemiologic Studies of the Elderly (HEPESE), as well as examining the impact of social support on Latino caregivers’ emotional and physical well-being. With the Eliminating Disparities in Clinical Trials (EDICT) initiative, she is compiling consensus from experts and policy recommendations for increasing the recruitment and retention of minority/older adults into clinical trials. Her research interests are in developing family-centered geriatric care models to improve the chronic disease management of a frail, older minority aging population and their family caregivers, developing community-based programs that promote awareness of depression, mental health and well-being in older adults, and examining ways of integrating civic engagement into physical activity health promotion programs targeting seniors. |
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Shedra
Amy Snipes, Ph.D. |
Dr. Shedra Amy Snipes is a biocultural anthropologist in the Multidisciplinary Track of the W.K. Kellogg Health Scholars Program. Dr. Snipes’ overarching interests are in studying aspects of biology, culture and folk beliefs, and environmental health. As a Kellogg Scholar, Dr. Snipes has been committed to applying bio-cultural research designs that address health disparities among migrant and seasonal farmworkers. Through a grant awarded by the Southwest Agricultural Health and Safety Center (SWAgC) of the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), Dr. Snipes is currently collecting important information on key factors which are unique to the migrant farmworker community. This study, entitled “The Migrant Farmworker Experience: An ‘Ethno-Occupational’ Health Assessment” will target the poorest and most unfairly treated group of the farmworker community, the migrant farmworker, as they travel from the Texas-Mexico border to find work. This research will provide the new, highly useful data on occupational illness, injury, and pesticide exposure among migrant farmworkers. Additionally, this work will test the feasibility of gathering biological samples from migrant farmworkers – a critical factor needed to assess risk in this vulnerable group. Finally, this study will provide an important, first-hand account of the migrant farmworker experience through ethnographic observational data collection. Insight gained from this investigation will be used to inform future studies by providing new, unexplored information specific to the migrant farmworker experience. Dr. Snipes is a graduate of the University of Washington, where she completed her M.A. and Ph.D. in Bio-Cultural Anthropology. She is also attended Emory University, receiving her B.S. in Anthropology and Human Biology. Dr. Snipes is a postdoctoral fellow at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center at the Center for Research on Minority Health and the Health Disparities Education, Awareness, Research & Training (HDEART) Consortium. | ||||
Mindi Spencer, Ph.D. |
Dr.
Mindi Spencer received her Ph.D. from the Life-Span Developmental
Psychology Program at West Virginia University. She received her
Bachelor of Science in Biology from West Virginia University and
graduated with a Gerontology Graduate Certificate and Women’s
Studies Graduate Certificate. Her primary focus has been in the application
of traditional psychosocial models to diverse populations to help
explain health-related outcomes. She has been involved in collaborative,
published research focusing on decision-making and social support
in older adulthood, health-related quality of life in Appalachia,
rural aging, the use of technology in data collection, and disability
and health care access among American Indian elders. She has also
conducted research on the effects of discrimination based on sexual
orientation across the life span. Spencer is a 2005-2006 AARP Scholar,
a 2005 Grantmakers in Aging Fellow, and a Fellow of the APA Minority
Aging Network In Psychology. She plans to continue her research. | ||||
Kalahn
Taylor-Clark, Ph.D. |
Dr.
Kalahn Taylor-Clark completed a Ph.D. in Health Policy and Political
Analysis from Harvard University. Her areas of research include public
health communication in politically and socially marginalized populations,
women, gender and health, and the political factors that influence
policy to ameliorate health disparities. She is currently a lecturer
at Tufts University, where she teaches "Women and Health" and "The
Politics of Health Disparities." Before teaching at Tufts, Dr.
Taylor-Clark held a position as a research assistant at Harvard School
of Public Health’s Project on Biological Security and the Public.
Her first-authored publications include, “Confidence in Crisis:
Understanding Trust in Government and Public Attitudes toward Mandatory
State Health Powers,” (2005) and “African Americans’ Views
on Health Policy: Implications for the 2004 Elections,” published
in Health Affairs in 2003. She looks forward to working with the
Kellogg Health Scholars Program to continue her work on communicating
to communities of color during public health crises. Kalahn will
be at the Harvard School of Public Health site. | ||||
Angela D. Thrasher, Ph.D. |
Dr. Angela Thrasher received her PhD in Health Behavior and Health Education from the University of North Carolina School of Public Health, where she also received her MPH, and received her BS in Psychology with a minor in Sociology from the College of William & Mary. Her dissertation research examined the extent to which discriminatory healthcare experiences and healthcare provider distrust explain racial/ethnic differences in medication adherence among a national sample of HIV+ individuals in care. She has also conducted research on the effect of counseling quality on medication adherence by HIV+ patients and the factors associated with influenza immunization by older African American adults. Dr. Thrasher began a new line of research during her Kellogg fellowship that explored how older African Americans respond to various measures of racial discrimination and whether there are cohort effects. Prior to her doctoral studies, she worked as an HIV/AIDS training and technical assistance specialist helping community-based organizations and the federal government work better together in addressing the HIV/AIDS epidemic in racial/ethnic minority populations, most recently as a component director of a multicultural nonprofit consulting firm. She also interned at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and volunteered with the AmeriCorps*VISTA national service program. Dr. Thrasher’s research interests include African American health and healthcare disparities, measurement issues in health disparities research, racism and health, and racial/ethnic disparities in HIV/AIDS. She was at the University of California, San Francisco/Berkeley site. | ||||
Anita
M. Wells, Ph.D. |
Anita M. Wells, PhD is the W. K. Kellogg Health Scholar in Multidisciplinary Disparities at the School of Community Health and Policy at Morgan State University. She earned her doctorate in Clinical Psychology from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and completed her clinical internship at the Department of Veterans Affairs, Hines VA Hospital. She holds an MA in Psychology from Wesleyan University and a BA from Yale University. Dr. Wells’ work in health disparities is geared toward effectively promoting enduring positive health practices (i.e. healthy diet, participation in health screenings) in minority populations and influencing change in health policy. Her research examines the psychological and social factors that interact to produce health outcomes. Dr. Wells’ current work includes research with colleagues at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health on increasing breast cancer screening among African American women, furthering knowledge of the post-treatment experiences of African American cancer survivors, and examining the impact of African American faith institutions and spirituality on health education and health practices. Dr. Wells’ other primary line of research focuses on the mental health and well-being of veterans of the Iraq war and their family members. | ||||
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