Population Health Research

Population health is concerned with health outcomes of a group of individuals, such as geographic populations, ethnic groups, disabled persons, prisoners, employees or any other defined group.

Many of our population health researchers work with students in our Population Health Sciences Master’s Degree program. 

Dan Avery, MD

• Regionalized Perinatal Care to Reduce Infant Mortality in Rural Alabama. Daniel M. Avery, Jr., MD
• Population Health: The Impact of Regional Medical School Campus on Health Care in Alabama. Daniel M. Avery, Jr, MD; J. Grier Stewart, MD; Catherine A. Skinner, MD; Nelle Williams, MSLS; Tom Weida, MD; John C. Higginbotham, PhD, MPH; Richard H. Streiffer, MD
• Infant Mortality Rate in Pickens County, Alabama. Jessica Powell, MD; Catherine A. Skinner, MD; Paul Drake Lavender, MD; Daniel M. Avery, Jr., MD; James D. Leeper, PhD
• The Impact of Hospital Labor and Delivery Closures on Out-of-Hospital Deliveries in Alabama Emergency Services. Paul Strickland, MD; James D. Leeper, PhD; Daniel M. Avery, Jr., MD
• Analysis, Revision, and Enhancement of Out-of-Hospital Care Measures of Obstetrics Cases in Rural Alabama. Jared Halstrom; Dwain Paul Strickland, MD; Glenn Davis; Travis Parker; W.E. Crawford, MD; Daniel M. Avery, Jr., MD

Caroline Boxmeyer, PhD

• Developing and testing the Mindful Coping Power program to improve self-regulation in emotionally reactive and aggressive youth
• The Mindful Leader: Measuring the effects of leader mindfulness on self-regulation in emotionally reactive and aggressive youth
• Improving Family Well-Being and Child School Readiness: Power PATH Dual Generation Intervention with Head Start preschoolers and their parents
• Disseminating the Power PATH mental health preventive intervention to the Pickens County Early Childhood Learning Center
• Testing the efficacy of a developmentally-informed Coping Power Program in middle schools
• Annual program evaluation of the Schoolyard Roots school garden curriculum

Martha Crowther, PhD, MPH

• Co-director of the Community Liaison Core of the Deep South Resource Center for Minority Aging Research (RCMAR)
• Readiness for Community Paramedicine and Integrated Mobile Health Care Interventions in Alabama

Louanne Friend, PhD, MN, RN | Tamer Elsayed, MD

• Develop and implement protocols to prevent, detect and control hypertension among African-American males ages 35-64 using data from existing electronic health records at University Medical Center

Abbey Gregg, PhD, MPH

• Readiness for Community Paramedicine and Integrated Mobile Health Care Interventions in Alabama
• LARC Provision in Alabama’s Publicly Funded Family Planning Clinics

Mercedes M. Morales-Aleman, PhD

• Principal-Investigator, An Examination of the Sexual Health and Health Care Needs of Adolescent Latinos in the US South: A Translational and Community Engaged Approach. Mercedes M. Morales-Alemán, PhD; Gwendolyn Ferreti, PhD; Qinglin Hu, PhD; Students: Paris Long (Master’s in Public Health) and Brooke Harwell (medical student)
• Co-investigator (12 percent effort) “Promoting Healthy Lifestyles among Latino Immigrant Families: It Takes a Village,” National Institutes of Health. R01CA215417. PI: Scarinci
• Co-investigator, Evaluating the Acceptability and Uptake of PrEP among Adolescent Cis-gender Women in the Deep South.” Gilead Sciences Inc. Mercedes Morales-Alemán, PhD; Samantha Hill (UAB); PI: Tina Simpson, UAB

Lea Yerby, PhD

• Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services 1115 Waiver, Alabama Medicaid Transformation. John C. Higginbotham, PhD; MPH; Lea G. Yerby, PhD
• Examining Caregivers’ Knowledge of Autism and Child Development across Rural and Urban Settings: Does a Disparity Exist? Lea G. Yerby, PhD; Angela Barber, PhD; Theodore Tomeny, PhD

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Population Health Collaborative Research