Scholars

CHSP Alumni Scholars P - S

Shani Harris Peterson, PhD

Current Position:
Assistant Professor
Department of Psychology
Spelman College

Training Site:
Johns Hopkins University

Education:
Ph.D, Clinical Psychology, Duke University - Durham
MA, Clinical Psychology, Duke University - Durham
BA, Psychology, Spelman College - Atlanta

Community Health Scholars Program Project:
Dr. Peterson's research primary research objective was to marry culturally-relevant models of risk with Entertainment-Education (EE) strategies to guide the development of an interactive, media-based health promotion tool designed to increase sexual health knowledge and reduce risk behaviors among African American girls. Her work was based in the Sandtown-Winchester community of west Baltimore, Maryland, where she has partnered with Community Building in Partnership, Inc., a CBO committed to empowering residents to direct and sustain the physical, social, and economic development of their community. Project goals were: to identify sociocultural and contextual factors that impact sexual decision making among African American adolescent girls living in the community; and to create a sustainable model for an arts-based after school program and, in its application, work with program participants to develop an interactive, media-based health promotion tool.

Research Interests:
Identifying psychosocial and contextual factors related to sexual risk taking, and discerning their association with HIV incidence among African American adolescent girls; examining the presence the sexual stereotypes in media, and exploring its impact on physiological responsiveness, sexual development and expression; and developing novel media-based interventions based on Entertainment-Education strategies to promote sexual health.

Current Activities:
Current projects include the development of an E-E serial video intervention; examining the relation between race, gender, discrimination and coping and related sexual health outcomes; and identifying the physiological effect of exposure to stereotypical sexual imagery in music videos and its impact on sexual attitudes and behaviors. Her current projects are supported by grants from the NIH-supported Spelman Center for Health Disparities Research and Education and the NSF Center for Behavior Neuroscience. Her teaching activities include leading an instructional team of faculty to revise key elements of core psychology courses, developing a new, interdisciplinary health psychology course, piloting a redesigned freshman orientation course, and mentoring undergraduate students in research settings. She maintains a strong interest in using technology to enhance her research and pedagogy, and incorporates innovative technology into her research programs and courses.


Penny Rechkemmer, PhD

Training Site:
Johns Hopkins University

Education:
PhD, Environmental and Occupational Health, University of Minnesota
MPH, Public Health Administration, University of Minnesota
MA, Anthropology, Iowa State University
BA, Anthropology, Iowa State University

Community Health Scholars Program Project:
Dr. Rechkemmer's program plan was focused on reducing the impact of environmental exposures on the health of those residing in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood. Goals of her research included increasing the capacity of residents to address environmental issues, developing outreach and educational materials around environmental justice issues as determined by a needs assessment, and gathering environmental plot data for future environmental justice grants.


Michael Reece, Ph.D, MPH

Current Position:
Director, Center for Sexual Health Promotion
Associate Professor, School of Health, Physical Education & Recreation
Indiana University

Training Site:
Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health

Education:
Ph.D., Health Behavior, University of Georgia
MPH, Health Promotion, San Diego State University
BS, Health Promotion, University of Georgia

Research Interests:
Sexual Health, HIV-Related Mental Health

Community Health Scholars Program Project:
During Dr. Reece's year in the Community Health Scholars Program he worked closely with two community-based organizations, Health Care for the Homeless (HCH) in Baltimore, Maryland, and Positive Impact, Inc., in Atlanta, Georgia. Through his work with HCH, Dr. Reece and his community partners worked to complete a process evaluation of the agency's outpatient additions treatment program. This work continues as Dr. Reece and his partners are exploring several funding opportunities for subsequent research based upon his CHSP project findings. At Positive Impact, an Atlanta area mental health clinic for low income, HIV affected individuals, Dr. Reece and his community partners worked on dissemination activities associated with research that they had conducted prior to the beginning of his CHSP year. They also explored the factors associated with sustaining a long-distance research partnership given that Dr. Reece and his partners had been conducting community-based participatory research prior to the beginning of his year at Johns Hopkins. Dissemination activities included presentations at national conferences, the preparation of manuscripts for submission to peer-reviewed journals, and the development of an application that was subsequently funded. As a result, Dr. Reece and his partners at Positive Impact will be able to continue their work over the next five years through the GA Comprehensive HIV/AIDS Minority Psychosocial Services Project. During his CHSP year, Dr. Reece also worked as the Program Planning Chair of the Community Based Public Health Caucus as this group organized a slate of scientific sessions for the 2001 American Public Health Association Annual Meeting.

Current Activities:
Dr. Reece's research is focused on sexual health in both domestic and international settings and is conducted under the auspices of his research team, the Center for Sexual Health Promotion. The Center is a collaborative of sexual health scholars from across the campuses of Indiana University and strategic partner academic institutions around the globe who, in partnership with practitioners from community-based health organizations, government and industry, work toward advancing the field of sexual health through our research, education and training initiatives. At the core is a commitment to the active engagement of graduate students in faculty work; this is viewed as essential to growing the next generation of sexual health scholars and practitioners.


Scott Rhodes, Ph.D, MPH

Current Position:
Assistant Professor
Department of Public Health Science
Wake Forest University School of Medicine

Training Site:
University of North Carolina

Education:
Ph.D, Health Behavior, University of Alabama at Birmingham
MPH, Health Administration, University of South Carolina
BA, Government, College of William and Mary

Research Interests:
Sexual health, HIV and Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD) prevention, and Health disparities among vulnerable communities

Community Health Scholars Program Project:
Dr. Rhodes worked on several projects including MAN (Men as Navigators) for Health, HoMBRes, and CyBER M4M. The objectives of the MAN for Health study was to address the priorities of 3 coalition partners to improve chronic disease and sexual health outcomes among African American and Latino men through multilevel interventions and alleviate gender and racial health disparities. The goal of the second listed project was to reduce the risk of sexually transmitted disease infection among Latino seasonal farmworkers through the development, implementation, and evaluation of HoMBREeS: Hombres Manteniendo Bienestar y Relaciones Saludables (Men maintaining wellness and healthy relationships).

By partnering with staff members, Dr. Rhodes collected evaluation data for a project done by a local AIDS Service Organization and then submitted a proposal to the UNC Center for AIDS Research entitled: "Developing and pilot-testing CyBer M4M: A chat-room-based lay health advisor intervention for men who have sex with men." The primary aim of this project was to develop and pilot-test an Internet-based lay health advisor HIV prevention intervention for men who have sex with men in partnership wtih the Triad Health Project in Greensboro, North Carolina.


Kevin Robinson, DrPH, MSW, MHA

Current Position:
Assistant Professor
Bryn Mawr College
Philadelphia, PA

Training Site:
University of Michigan School of Public Health

Education:
DrPH, Sociomedical Sciences, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health
MSW, Community Organization/Community and Social Systems, University of Michigan School of Social Work
MHA, Public Health Policy and Administration, Pennsylvania State University
BS, Biological Sciences, Clemson University

Community Health Scholars Program Project:
Dr. Kevin Robinson worked on two research projects with the Prevention Research Center (PRC) of Michigan, The Community Capacity Building to Reduce Health Disparities and the 2005 Speak to Your Health! Community Survey and Qualitative Assessment. Both research projects employ community-based participatory research methods to examine social determinants of health and utilize the conceptual framework of social ecology to understand the individual nested in family, nested in neighborhood, nested in the city. The Prevention Research Center is one of 33 centers nationwide funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The Community Capacity Building to Reduce Health Disparities intervention research project was designed to test a model for enhancing Community Based Organizations' capacity to more effectively and equitably partner in local efforts to eliminate health disparities. Dr. Robinson's primary research project involved collaborating with two Community Based Organizational partners that currently provide HIV/AIDS prevention and care services to enhance their capacity to systematically develop and evaluate HIV/AIDS prevention services and interventions in Flint, MI. This collaborative effort resulted in a $25,000 award from The Ruth Mott Foundation for "YOUR Blessed Health", a six-month demonstration project and collaborative effort between YOUR Center and ten Flint area churches with predominately African American congregations. Specifically, the partnership of YOUR Center, ministers and their wives will test the efficacy of an intervention to increase sexual health knowledge and skills of adolescents, aged 11-19.

Dr. Robinson's secondary research project employed focus group methodology to further explore the preliminary sexual health findings from the 2005 Speak to Your Health! Community Survey. Specifically, the project probes the apparent disconnect between self-reported higher HIV testing rates and condom usage, and lower STI testing rates for African American women, aged 18-24, in Flint, MI. The ultimate goal of the project is to mobilize African American communities to find innovative ways to reduce HIV/AIDS morbidity and mortality, and to encourage local governments and communities to expand and strengthen their responses, community awareness, leadership, civic engagement and support for HIV/AIDS prevention.

Current Activities:
Kevin J. Robinson is currently an Assistant Professor at Bryn Mawr College’s Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research. Dr. Robinson teaches Community Practice, The Social Determinants of Health and Health Equity, Social Welfare Policy, To Protect the Health of the Public: Strategies, Successes and Failures of Health Policies in the United States and Other Countries, Social Theory, and Foundation Practice. Dr. Robinson is a Co-Principal Investigator on a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) funded research study (four-year grant period) that will develop and evaluate an intervention to assist Black MSM/W to reduce their risk for acquiring and transmitting HIV infection. Findings from the evaluation will be used to develop strategies to recruit bisexually-active men for research, HIV testing, and prevention services, as well as to better understand the individual, social network and socio-cultural factors that are related to HIV risk behaviors. Dr. Robinson’s professional commitment to Philadelphia’s public health community is evidenced by his membership on the Board of Directors of The Mazzoni Center (the largest LGBT health center in Philadelphia), and his membership on the Clara Bell Duvall Reproductive Freedom Project Anniversary and Strategic Planning Advisory Committee of the ACLU of Pennsylvania.


Michael Royster, MD, MPH

Current Position:
Director of the Virginia Department of Health, Office of Minority Health and Public Health Policy

Training Site:
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Education:
MD, School of Medicine, Duke University of Medicine
MPH, School of Hygiene & Public Health, Johns Hopkins University
BA, Biology, University of Virginia

Research Interests:
Men's Health, Community Partnerships, Health Disparities

Community Health Scholars Program Project:
Dr. Royster worked with a community-based organization and a coalition of community representatives to develop an initiative to improve the health of African American men in Raleigh, NC. He conducted focus groups and used them as a basis for the issues that they will target. Dr. Royster also worked on the evaluation of a community-based chronic disease prevention project. The evaluation will determine changes in behaviors, community capacity, and cultural norms that result from the interventions. As well, he has also conducted an assessment of this community-based organization and its members to develop recommendations that would contribute to improving the organization's functions.

Current Activities:
Dr. Royster is currently the Director of the Virginia Department of Health, Office of Minority Health and Public Health Policy (OMHPHP). OMHPHP’s mission is to advance health equity by identifying health inequities, assessing their root causes, and addressing them by promoting social justice, influencing policy, establishing partnerships, providing resources, and educating the public. OMHPHP serves as Virginia’s state office of minority health, rural health, and primary care. The Office focuses on advancing health equity by designating medically underserved areas, improving access to quality health care, addressing barriers to rural health, focusing on community-based participatory efforts to promote health equity, and facilitating strategies to target the social determinants of health and advance social justice.


Yamir Salabarría-Peña, DrPH

Current Position:
Senior Evaluator
Global AIDS Program
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Training Site:
University of Michigan

Education:
Dr.PH., Health Education, Loma Linda University
MPH, Health Education, University of Puerto Rico
BS, Health Education, University of Puerto Rico

Research Interests:
Maternal child health in Latino communities

Community Health Scholars Program Project:
As a Community Health Scholar Dr. Salabarría-Peña immersed in CBPR projects that involved underserved populations such as African American and Latinos living in Detroit, Michigan for the purpose of reducing ethnic health disparities. This required the participation of the communities affected. The projects Dr. Salabarría-Peña was a part of are affiliated with a partnership composed of individuals from the academia, health department, and community health organizations represented by individuals from communities where the projects are being conducted. The projects also have steering committees (academic, community and health service partners) that participated in developing interview protocols, identifying group facilitators and participants, interpreting results, disseminating findings in the community, and designing interventions. Discrimination, racism, organizational structure, culture, community's low-educational levels were issues, which if not addressed may have had a number of adverse results. These might have included projects coming to a standstill, dissolution of partners, limited longevity of projects, lack of communication between partners involved, increased community underlying mistrust, and limited community empowerment and development.

Current Activities:
As a Behavioral Scientist in the Global AIDS Program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), she is a senior evaluator where she serves as the Strategic Information (SI) Advisor of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) for the Central America Region (Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama), Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) point person for Dominican Republic and Rwanda, and a member of the PEPFAR M&E Technical Working Groups. She is currently leading an evaluation capacity-building project which main goal is to increase the number of rigorous, feasible and short-term evaluations across programmatic areas. In her career as an evaluator, her emphasis is on empowerment and participatory evaluations, application of mixed methods, and program implementation analysis. She has provided expert consultation on evaluation design and capacity building to colleagues in the areas of maternal and child mortality, HIV/STI/TB control and prevention, and adolescent and school health programs US-domestically, Africa, Asia and in Latin America.


Lisa Benz Scott, Ph.D, MS

Current Position:
Clinical Associate Professor
State University of New York at Stony Brook
School of Health Care Policy and Management

Training Site:
Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health

Education:
PhD, School of Hygiene & Public Health, Johns Hopkins University
MS, Department of Health, Kinesiology, and Leisure Studies, Division of Health Promotion, Purdue University
BA, Psychology, State University of New York at Stony Brook

Research Interests:
Gender & race/ethnic disparities in health care (particularly related to cardiac rehabilitation services), Health communication and behavior change research, clinical/translational research, community-based participatory research methods & evaluation

Community Health Scholars Program Project:
Dr. Benz Scott worked with a team of scientists, clinicians, community health workers, and case workers to transition over 300 men from participating in a randomized clinical trial to treat and control high blood pressure to a community-owned clinical practice setting. Dr. Benz Scott was responsible for organizing, facilitating, and working closely with both academic and community partners. She also partnered with the Johns Hopkins University Urban Health Institute and the Maryland Institute for Cultural Arts to develop and disseminate health messages based on the results of this research. Other projects included creating health education materials for East Baltimore residents faced with demolition of row houses in their community, and established a community advisory board to address barriers affecting womens' ability to maximize the benefits of outpatient cardiac rehabilitation.

Current Activities:
Her current research is dedicated to addressing leading public health priorities such as those related to gender and race/ethnic disparities in cardiac services, health promotion and wellness services for child survivors of cancer and their families, and participatory approaches to improve access to preventative health care services through e-health and human development initiatives in partnerships with low resource communities in the U.S. and in the developing world. She also is interested in health-related research that falls at the intersection between social psychology, health communication, and health behavior change. Lisa was named Associate Dean for Research for the School of Health Technology and Management in September 2006 (a three year appointment. Dr. Benz Scott has authored or co-authored over a dozen peer-reviewed journal articles and more than 25 peer-reviewed presentations at national and international professional conferences. She has been recognized for her expertise as a repeat peer-reviewer for the NIH and CDC for federal research grant reviews, reviews grants for private foundations on community health research topics, and is frequently invited to review manuscripts for publication consideration.


Diane Marie St. George, Ph.D, MA

Current Position:
Assistant Professor
University of Maryland Baltimore
Baltimore, MD

Training Site:
University of North Carolina

Education:
Ph.D, Epidemiology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
MA, Health Education, University of Maryland at College Park
BS, Zoology & Psychology, University of Maryland at College Park

Research Interests:
Social disparities in health and distance education

Community Health Scholars Program Project:
Dr. St. George's major project was entitled "Assessing the Relationships Between Health Service Organizations and the Communities They Serve." That study was based upon the U.S. organizational competence research being conducted by Dr. St. George's CHSP mentor, Dr. Eugenia Eng, and her colleagues. The goal of Dr. Eng's project was to examine organizational competence, specifically the ability of health service organizations to effectively interact with the communities they serve in order to identify and respond to their needs. The purpose of Dr. St. George's exploratory study was to evaluate the extent to which the dimensions of organizational competence are manifest in a Caribbean country community, specifically in the institutions that were involved in alcohol and other drug abuse (AOD) prevention. Work for this study was conducted in conjunction with the members of the study community, namely a community AOD prevention "action group". Qualitative data were collected by semi-structured face-to-face interviews with representatives of various health-related organizations in the community. Data analysis is currently underway, and the results of this study are expected to contribute to an understanding of how the dimensions of organizational competence may vary by community and health outcome.