December 4, 2023
Research and scholarly work by College of Community Health Sciences faculty, residents, medical students and graduate students was featured Nov. 16 at the College’s 14th Annual Research and Scholarly Activity Day.
At the event, 36 posters were displayed that highlight research ranging from racial health disparities, motor vehicle crash death rates, COVID-19 behavioral responses and training programs, self-measured blood pressure monitoring and diet changes and weight loss.
“I am excited to say that this year we had twice as many posters as we did last year,” said Dr. Martha Crowther, CCHS associate dean for Research and Health Policy. “This is a big deal because as a College that has a research focus as part of our mission, it is important that we are educating our students. The quality of our posters gets better every year.”
“To see so many people talking about research and engaging in this kind of informal sort of discussion is why we do research, because we bring people together to have these sorts of moments where we can talk about opportunities to collaborate,” said Dr. Allen Parrish, interim vice president for Research and Economic Development for The University of Alabama, who attended the event.
During the program, winners of the abstract poster reviews provided oral presentations about their research.
Crowther introduced the first oral presenter – graduate research student Marcelo Galafassi, whose research included an analysis of rural-urban disparities in motor vehicle crash death rates in Alabama counties.
Dr. Louanne Friend, assistant director for Research and Quality Improvement for The University of Alabama Tuscaloosa Family Medicine Residency Program, which CCHS operates, introduced two residents—Hunter Dulaney and Muhammad Khan – who also provided oral presentations of their research.
Dulaney’s research focused on an airway management workshop for first-year resident physicians, and Khan’s research provided an assessment of learners’ pediatric oral health knowledge.
“I’m really proud of these residents,” Friend said. “One team’s research work has really affected our interns (first-year residents), whose medical education was highly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, and our other team’s work has introduced something that is essential in our primary care clinics for patients who do not have access to dental care.”
Winners were selected in several divisions:
First Place: Graham Jones for Identifying genetic risk factors for transient ischemic attack utilizing sequencing based GWAS and the All of Us Research Program; co-authors: Casey Macander; Marcelo Galafassi; Antara Das; Alta Willaert; and Dr. John C. Higginbotham, CCHS professor of community medicine and population health and director of the College’s Institute for Rural Health Research.
Second Place: Marcelo Galafassi for Rural-Urban Disparities: A State-Level Analysis of Motor Vehicle Crash Death Rate in Alabama Counties; co-authors: Casey Macander; Antara Das; Graham Jones; Alta Willaert; and Dr. John C. Higginbotham, CCHS professor of community medicine and population health and director of the College’s Institute for Rural Health Research.
Third Place: Shabnam Naher for Assessment of Trust, Health Concerns, and COVID-19 Information: Behavioral Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic; co-authors: Nathanial Shannon IV; Dr. Lisle Hites, CCHS associate professor of community medicine and population health and Interim Associate Director of the College’s Institute for Rural Health Research; Lamees El-sadek, research analyst with the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and evaluation lead with the Mississippi State Department of Health Office of Health Data and Research; and Dr. Victor Sutton, director of the Office of Preventive Health and Health Equity at the Mississippi State Department of Health.
First Place: Dr. Mitchell Currie, resident with the UA Tuscaloosa Family Medicine Residency Program, for Airway Management Workshop for PGY-1 Residents; co-authors: Dr. Hunter Dulaney; Emily Halvorson; and Dr. Louanne Friend, CCHS associate professor of community medicine and population health and assistant residency director for Research and Quality Improvement.
Second Place: Dr. Muhammad Khan for An Assessment of Learners Pediatric Oral Health Knowledge; co-author: Dr. Gavin Atwal, resident with the UA Tuscaloosa Family Medicine Residency Program.
Third Place: Dr. Nicholas Goodwin for Imerslund-Grasbeck syndrome; co-author: Dr. Merna George, resident with the UA Tuscaloosa Family Medicine Residency Program.
First Place: Dr. Lilanta Bradley for Centering the lived experience of Head Start families to investigate intersections of structural; co-authors: Dr. Jen Nickelson, associate professor at UA’s College of Human Environmental Sciences; and Felecia Lucky, president of the Black Belt Community Foundation.
Second Place: Dr. Sara Phillips, CCHS associate professor of pediatrics, for Understanding Parental Views of the Coronavirus Vaccine; co-authors: Dr. Shawn Cecil, CCHS assistant professor of pediatrics; and Dr. Nicole Lally, resident with the UA Tuscaloosa Family Medicine Residency Program.
Third Place: Dr. Maryam Bidgoli, CCHS assistant professor of health economics and community health and population, for Unlocking the Path to Well-Being: Financial, Emotional, and Social Factors Among Older Adults.
The judges for Research and Scholarly Activity Day were Dr. Grier Stewart, CCHS assistant dean for Undergraduate Medical Education and associate professor of family, internal, and rural medicine; Andrea Wright, CCHS associate professor and clinical/technical services librarian; Dr. Cecil Robinson, CCHS associate professor and director of Learning Resources and Evaluation; and Dr. David Hardy, associate dean for Research and Service at UA’s College of Education.
“It is exciting to see all the progress we have made in 14 years,” said Dr. Richard Friend, dean of CCHS. “This is a rigorous process, but it is a very important part of our mission.”
