Bio

Prior to joining department faculty and the Medical School Program in Health Disparities Research, Michele Allen, MD, MS, completed a fellowship in primary care research and the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program. She is active in health disparities research and scholarship and serves as a reviewer for several scientific journals.

Bio

Dr. Brady received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology and Biological/Health Psychology from the University of Pittsburgh. She completed her clinical psychology internship at the University of Illinois at Chicago Institute for Juvenile Research, and a 2-year postdoctoral research fellowship in Health Psychology at the University of California, San Francisco. Prior to joining the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health (DFMCH), Dr. Brady conducted research and taught courses within the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. In the DFMCH, Dr. Brady divides her time between conducting research and providing behavioral health care at M Health Fairview Smiley’s Clinic.

Research Summary

Dr. Brady has developed transdisciplinary and community-engaged programs of research. Dr. Brady’s transdisciplinary research has primarily focused on the prevention of lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS). She is Multiple Principle Investigator (MPI) for CARDIA-PLUS: A Life Course Investigation of Biopsychosocial Pathways to Bladder Health and Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms, which is funded by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK). She is also a Co-Investigator for the NIDDK-funded Prevention of Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms (PLUS) Research Consortium. Dr. Brady’s community-engaged program of research has focused on the well-being of adolescents and diverse communities, including a focus on how assets of individuals and their families, peers, schools, and communities can promote health protective behaviors. This includes research on mental health and emotional well-being, sexual health, prevention of violence and substance abuse, identification of social and structural determinants of health, and promotion of health equity. Dr. Brady’s research has utilized community partnerships and coalitions to reach diverse communities. Sources of funding include the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD), National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), United States Department of Education, and Annie E. Casey Foundation.

Teaching Summary

Dr. Brady has taught courses in community health promotion, adolescent health, and the application of conceptual frameworks and theory to the development of prevention interventions and research. In addition, Dr. Brady mentors early career scientists, both individually and as part of workshops, in the conceptual aspects of planning a program of research.

Bio

Administrator Info
Name: Jill Charles
Phone: 612-624-0468
Email: jcharles@umn.edu

Summary
Dr. Bramante's research focuses on remotely delivered interventions to improve health in children and adults with overweight and obesity. This research includes remotely delivered clinical trials that assess interventions that may prevent severe COVID-19 and Long-COVID (covidout.umn.edu). Dr. Bramante also researches ways to assist daily health management at home, such as weight management interventions for children and adults seeking obesity treatment. Dr. Bramante sees patients in the comprehensive pediatric and adult weight management clinics. The M Health Fairview Comprehensive Weight Management Clinic treats each patient individually, acknowledging that obesity and weight loss are very complicated. Both clinics offer medication management, which is often indicated to address dysregulated pathways in the energy-regulatory systems that lead to excess weight so that lifestyle changes can be effective.

Click here for more information on Long Covid research

Teaching Summary

Medical student and resident teaching

Clinical Summary

Obesity Treatment and prevention; Anti-obesity pharmacotherapy

Bio

Brooke Cunningham, MD, PhD, is a general internist, a sociologist, an assistant professor in the University of Minnesota Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, and commissioner for the Minnesota Department of Health. Dr. Cunningham uses mixed methods to examine factors at both the provider and organizational levels that impede or facilitate efforts to address health equity, including how health care workers make sense of race and frame the causes of and solutions to racial disparities in health and health care.She teaches a course on race to first-year medical students and has been invited to speak to students and faculty from other medical schools about race and medicine.Dr. Cunningham practices internal medicine at the Community-University Health Care Clinic (CUHCC), a federally-qualified health clinic in Minneapolis that serves a diverse patient population, most of whom live in poverty.

Research Summary

Research Funding GrantsPrincipal Investigator
2016-18, U of M CTSI Pre-K Award
Purpose: Conduct a systematic review of interventions conducted with health care personnel to promote engagement with race, racism, or racial disparities in health and to develop a scale to measure providers’ psychological safety and perceptions of organizational culture in relation to racial health and health care disparities.

2015-17, U of M Office of the Vice President for Research
Title: "From 0 to 100: Building Strong Positive Organizational Climates for Health Equity"
Purpose: Use qualitative methods to identify the domains of health equity climate, by contrasting a local safety net health system—which has recently decided to elevate health equity—to health systems which are considered “best in class.”

2015-16, U of M Serendipity Grant
Title: "Come Step in It: Real Talk about Race"
Purpose: Use participatory action research to develop an intervention to promote effective dialogues about race in health care.

Co-Investigator
2015-20, NHLBI
Title: "The Impact of Residency Factors on Racial, Size, and LGBT Bias in Physician Trainees"
Purpose: This study is part of a program of research intended to evaluate and improve the degree to which physician training promotes physicians’ ability to provide equally high quality and patient-centered care to all patients regardless of their race or ethnicity, size, or sexual orientation.

2013-17, VA Health Services Research & Development
Title: "Motivating Providers to Reduce Disparities in Their Own Practice"
Purpose: Develop and test communication strategies to motivate VA providers to prevent racial health care disparities.

Bio

Administrator Info
Name: Jill Charles
Phone: 612-624-0468
Email: jcharles@umn.edu
Fax: 612-626-6782
Mail: 717 Delaware Street SE
Suite 166
Minneapolis, MN 55414

Summary
Dr. Susan Everson-Rose, PhD, MS, MPH, FABMR, FAPS, is a tenured Professor in the Department of Medicine where she also serves as Associate Director for Research in the Division of General Internal Medicine. She also is Associate Director of the Program in Health Disparities Research, and Director of the Health Equity Leadership and Mentoring (HELM) program, which provides career development support and leadership training for early-stage investigators doing health equity work and/or identifying from a group under-represented in medicine and science. She is trained in psychophysiology, health disparities, and cardiovascular and social epidemiology and has over 30 years of experience as an NIH-funded investigator. The overarching goal of her research, which is guided by a Social and Structural Determinants of Health (SSDOH) framework, is to understand how lived experiences influence the patterning of health and disease across diverse patient populations and community samples. Her work has shown how stress, distress, emotions, personality, behavioral, social and economic factors contribute to morbidity and mortality due to cardiovascular diseases and related conditions, greater cognitive decline, cancer-related behavioral and lifestyle risk factors, and worse health outcomes overall. Her most recent work focuses on evidence-based stress-management, and mindfulness-based interventions that can be used to effectively manage chronic disease conditions and promote healthier lifestyles in diverse settings. Dr. Everson-Rose has published extensively (>150 peer-reviewed manuscripts that collectively have been cited in the literature >21,000 times) and is nationally and internationally recognized for her expertise in psychosocial factors in chronic disease. 

Bio

Dr. Okah is a health equity researcher in the areas of health services and population health. Her research is focused on understanding how physicians perceive and use race in their medical decision-making and evaluating how experiences of racism contribute to cardiovascular disease in Black Americans. Her clinical interests include preventive medicine, mental wellness, diabetes and hypertension management.

Clinical Summary

Family Medicine/Primary Care

Bio

Rebekah Pratt, PhD, is research faculty in the U of M Department of Family Medicine and Community Health.

Bio

Administrator Info
Name: Jill Charles
Email: jcharles@umn.edu
Mail: 717 Delaware Street SE
Suite 166
Minneapolis, MN 55414

Summary
Dr. Rogers is an Assistant Professor in Internal Medicine and Pediatrics with an appointment in the Applied Clinical Research Program. She is board certified in both Internal Medicine and Pediatrics and is a graduate of the University of Nebraska College of Medicine. After finishing her residency training at the Harvard Brigham and Women's Hospital/Boston Children's Hospital program, she completed the Primary Care Research Fellowship at UCSF. Her interests include socioeconomic and ethnicity-based disparities and chronic disease risk, supporting patients in prevention and management of chronic diseases such as diabetes, health coaching and peer education, implementation science, and community-engaged research.

Bio

Administrator Info
Name: Colleen Doyle
Email: doyl0050@umn.edu
Mail: 717 Delaware Street SE
Suite 166
MMC 1932
Minneapolis, MN 55414

Summary
Dr. Thomas completed her Ph.D. training in clinical psychology, with an emphasis on behavioral medicine at Louisiana State University. She later completed internship training in Health Psychology at the University of California, San Diego and a post-doctoral research fellowship in tobacco research at the Nicotine Dependence Center and the Department of Psychiatry and Psychology at the Mayo Clinic, College of Medicine. Prior to joining the faculty of the University of Minnesota, she was an Assistant Professor of Preventive Medicine and Public Health at the University of Kansas Medical Center. There she taught Health Promotion and Disease Prevention to first year medical students and served as a preceptor to students in the Master's in Public Health program. Although primarily a behavioral scientist, Dr. Thomas is also a licensed psychologist specializing in the treatment of anxiety disorders. Her primary research interests targets tobacco control efforts among underserved populations including African American, Native American and East African communities. Her current research uses behavioral interventions to decrease smoking among young adult college students using contingency management approaches or "Quit and Win" smoking cessation contests. She has also utilized this approach to address weight loss among college students. In addition, she is investigating the use of biomarker feedback documenting child exposure to tobacco specific carcinogens to promote smoke free homes. Finally, she is collaborating with the Twin Cities East African community to decrease waterpipe smoking (hookah) in homes and public venues. She has served as an NIH grant reviewer.

Bio

April Wilhelm, MD, MPH, is a faculty physician and clinician-researcher at the University of Minnesota St. John's Hospital Family Medicine Residency and the Program for Health Disparities Research. Prior to joining the faculty, she completed an interdisciplinary fellowship in child and adolescent primary care research at the University of Minnesota. Her research program centers on promoting healthy behaviors among adolescents in refugee and immigrant communities and child and adolescent tobacco prevention and control.

Research Summary

Adolescent tobacco prevention; refugee/immigrant health; health equity, social determinants of health

Service Summary

Adolescent health, refugee/immigrant health, adolescent tobacco prevention

Clinical Summary

Reproductive health; adolescent health; healthy lifestyle promotion; chronic disease management

Bio

Dr. Serena Xiong is a community-engaged implementation scientist. Her program of research draws on the tenets of designing, implementing, and communicating research for a more equitable world. It incorporates participatory research approaches (e.g., community-based participatory research, human-centered design principles) to address cancer-related health disparities. She has a history of implementing evidence-based and multilevel strategies for increasing cervical cancer screening (e.g., HPV self-sampling) and HPV vaccination across clinical settings, schools, and other organizations.