Department of Biobehavioral Health & Population Sciences

Overview

The Department of Biobehavioral Health and Populations Sciences in Duluth is a community of faculty who come from multiple disciplines. We share a commitment to the creation of an enriching and supportive academic environment within which students pursue excellence in medical education. We also strive to create an environment where faculty and students can join in the generation of new knowledge through research. The department offers experiential and research training opportunities for medical students throughout their academic career in medical school.

Academics

Faculty members teach the traditional areas of human behavior within the medical school curriculum. This includes study of behavioral health and dysfunction, biological underpinnings of behavior, mechanisms of behavioral change, and human development as understood from the individual, family, and sociocultural levels. In addition, faculty provide training in professional communication skills and the patient-doctor relationship, including psychosocial aspects of health care delivery and competencies in its cultural dimension, as well as medicolegal and ethical aspects of patient care. As a faculty, we are also interested in social determinants of health and the social epidemiology and health demography of populations (particularly as it relates to health equity and services disparities). A great deal of curricular interaction is present between our faculty and the faculty of the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health.

Research Focus

Department faculty members are internationally recognized experts in their areas of study. Our faculty pursue investigator-initiated studies on a broad range of individual and group health behavior and population studies. Current research explores the efficacy of innovative rural health care delivery models (e.g. telehealth, distance delivery consultative models), the neurobiological mechanisms of stress and their relation to heart disease, and several examples of novel community health research with Native American communities. Our evolving research emphasis focuses on health issues relevant to rural and Native American communities. Faculty also engage in collaborative research with investigators in the College of Pharmacy on the UMD campus and with our colleagues in the Medical School on the Twin Cities campus, as well as with other national and international scientists.

Clinical Services

Faculty and staff provide psychotherapeutic consultation and collaborative care with patients and medical colleagues in rural communities. These services are offered via the Center for Rural Mental Health Studies’ telemental health network housed in the department.

Faculty

Head
James Allen, Ph.D.

Professors
Mustafa N. al'Absi, Ph.D.
James Allen, Ph.D.
James G. Boulger, Ph.D.
Richard M. Eisenberg, Ph,D. - Emeritus
Barbara A. Elliott, Ph.D.
John G. Grabowski, Ph.D.

Adjunct Professor
Frederic W. Hafferty, Ph.D.
Catherine A. McCarty, Ph.D.

Associate Professor
Gary L. Davis, Ph.D.
Richard G. Hoffman, Ph.D. - Emeritus
Jane Hovland, Ph.D.

Adjunct Associate Professor
Pat Conway, Ph.D., LCSW
Fred Friedman, J.D.
May Nawal Lutfiyya, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Melissa L. Walls, Ph.D.

Adjunct Assistant Professor
Steven J. Bauer, M.D.
Charles Gessert, M.D.
Steven Sutherland, M.D.

Research Assistant Professor
Motohiro Nakajima, Ph.D.

Clinical Instructor
Benjamin Wolfe, M.Ed