Our Scholars

Advancing health equity by addressing the mental health harms of structural racism, incarceration, and violence exposures and improving access to quality care.

Optimizing emergency department utilization in underserved communities by examining health disparities that preclude timely access to preventative healthcare; investigating methods to increase equitable access to care in urban health settings.

Investigating both policy and clinical solutions to replace arrest and jail for those with psychiatric conditions; exploring the intersections between public health interventions at home and health equity abroad.

Assessing state-level policies that focus on reducing healthcare disparities and improving access to care for systemically disadvantaged populations.

Investigating applications of restorative justice to clinical medicine to repair harm from inequitable care and racism, and to improve trust and trustworthiness.

Investigating how to improve adolescent mental healthcare access and delivery, especially as it relates to suicide prevention services for racial-ethnic minorities.

Investigating social determinants of mental health, the role of racism in perpetuating racial/ethnic disparities in mental health care, community-partnered mental health interventions, and the implementation of evidence-based anti-racism training in mental health care.

Investigating health care delivery and access within primary care, with a focus in the treatment of obesity in older adults.

Investigating the healthcare needs of female service members and veterans to include healthcare access, disparities in care, medical mistrust, and gender-related health concerns.

Understanding barriers in access to high-quality surgical care in vulnerable populations; exploring the ways that housing impacts surgical outcomes, including surgery for cancer.

Investigating long-term care, systems, and policy to improve quality of life and health equity for older adults and their caregivers

Investigating gaps in care and developing interventions to improve the quality and equity of reproductive and sexual health care in the Emergency Department.

Investigating the implementation sciences surrounding value-based healthcare and its impact on outcomes; unraveling the relationship between the political determinants of health, access to care, and interventions that drive equity.

Improving quality of care for vulnerable emergency department patients including those with substance use disorders and psychiatric emergencies, victims of trauma, and patients with obstetric and gynecologic complications.

Investigating racial and socioeconomic disparities in pediatric cardiac arrest, designing and implementing interventions to mitigate disparities in pediatric critical care.

Investigating structural barriers to successful transitions to adult health care in young, vulnerable populations and exploring health policy innovations to enhance transitional care outcomes.  

Investigating healthcare access and policy factors impacting care for marginalized populations, including Medi-Cal patients.

Interrogating the political economy of pharmaceutical development and the financial toxicity of current pharmaceutical provisioning with the aim of designing new regulatory frameworks that align price, value, and healthcare equity.

Understanding how the patient experience surrounding surgical complications can help inform changes to the pre-operative counseling session prior to breast cancer surgery.

Improving quality of stroke care and stroke outcomes by examining and addressing health disparities and social determinants of health through policy and community-engaged approaches.

Characterizing impact of health-related social needs on vulnerable adolescents and young adults, and developing primary care-based interventions to improve disparities in chronic disease development.

Investigating implementation strategies to sustainably adapt evidence-based practices and technologies in pediatric acute care to resource-diverse settings.

Exploring how social and structural adversities, trauma, and violence influence mental health and resilience in marginalized youth transitioning to adulthood.

Investigating the impact of emotions on cancer-related decisions with a focus on identifying unmet psychosocial needs, enhancing communication, and improving patient-centered outcomes.

Investigating evidence-based policy solutions for people experiencing homelessness and substance use disorder.

Investigating how characteristics of social networks are associated with postpartum diet, activity, and weight as an important first step in addressing postpartum health behaviors from a multi-level/domain approach.

Examining obstacles to prescription drug access, affordability, and adherence.

Investigating the impacts of state-level price regulations on healthcare access, quality, and equity to help advance future reforms.

Investigating health disparities in chronic disease outcomes within primary care; identifying cost-effective, community-partnered approaches to managing chronic diseases in underserved communities.

Investigating inequalities and inefficiencies in the perioperative period and the resultant impact on patient and provider experiences, as well as health system costs and utilization.

De-implementing low-value preoperative testing before common surgical procedures and optimizing perioperative care.

Investigating the unique challenges in the delivery of surgical care for rural patients and working towards improving access, quality, and costs of care for rural patients in the United States.

Using CBPR-based methods to mitigate racial and ethnic health disparities with a focus on infant/child nutrition, maintenance of maternal lactation, and food insecurity.

Investigating health inequities in mental health and substance use during the perinatal period and addressing gaps in data disaggregation in Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islanders mental health research.

Investigating the barriers and alternatives to traditional housing and exploring community-based interventions that improve the health of individuals and families experiencing homelessness.

Designing inclusive curricula and collaborating in a multi-disciplinary manner to disseminate innovative methods of medical education for healthcare providers, medical trainees, patients, and community members.

Integrating social and medical care to improve wellbeing at a population level.

Investigating how contextual factors like race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status intersect with dementia outcomes, and strategies for increasing representation of ethnoracially diverse older adults and caregivers in clinical research

Investigating how state-level policies differentially influence perinatal outcomes and utilizing health policy implementation science to challenge obstetric health disparities, especially among people with high risk maternal health conditions.

Investigating the impacts of social determinants of health, such as trauma and adversity, on biopsychosocial health outcomes and healthcare service disparities spanning the general population, veterans, and multiple sclerosis populations.

Investigating injury and violence prevention strategies with a specific focus on hospital-based violence intervention programs.

Using ethics-informed approaches to examine and enhance preventive health interventions and shared decision-making in adult primary care with patients of low socioeconomic status.

Evaluating disparities in advanced care planning, referral patterns to palliative care, and how to optimize goal-concordant care delivery for surgical patients.

Investigating suicide risk and how the assessment of symptoms, behaviors, and environment, on the individual level using innovative technologies, may improve the efficacy and equity of psychiatric triage and treatment.

Investigating health policy, community empowerment, quality improvement, and payment reform to improve health equity and delivery of primary care.

Investigating the impact of high-deductibles on health outcomes and access to care for low-income and minority populations; exploring the impact of providers' implicit biases on patient care.

Building systems of accompaniment to improve health for structurally vulnerable patients in the U.S. and globally; investigating the political economy of care infrastructure and access to health technologies.

Improving access to surgical care for low-income and vulnerable populations, with a focus on thoracic surgery.

Investigating patient-centered information exchanges, early childhood literacy, and voting as a social determinant of health.

Investigating how medical professionals interface with electronic health records (EHR) and how novel machine learning tools can integrate into the EHR to both improve quality of care and provider wellness.

Improving delivery of care for underserved communities in federally qualified health centers and investigating diabetes disparities with a focus on technology access.

Understanding disparities in diagnosis, treatment, and outcomes for patients with hematologic malignancies from underrepresented racial and ethnic backgrounds, and developing relevant interventions to address these inequities through community engagement.

Applying implementation science methodology to improve the quality of nurse practitioner care for rural populations with mental health conditions.

Addressing disparities in access and referral to care related to mental health, substance use disorders, and homelessness from the emergency department

Development and ethical implementation of provider-facing machine learning and artificial intelligence tools for clinical diagnosis, hospital operations, and medical education.

Aiming to improve care of head and neck cancer patients in resource-constrained health systems.

Improving the quality of care within skilled nursing facilities and long-term care for older, vulnerable adults; evaluating the impact of Medicaid policies and changes on care delivery and beneficiary outcomes.

Making surgical care more accessible and equitable, at home and abroad.

Examining how poverty-related disparities develop across the pediatric cancer care continuum and developing interventions to mitigate these disparities in long-term survivors.