Using geographic information systems to characterize food environments around historically black colleges and universities: Implications for nutrition interventions.

Dr. Naomi Nichele Duke, MD, PhD, MPH, is an Associate Professor. Working at the intersection of medicine, sociology, and population health, Dr. Duke brings a unique perspective to address social drivers in maternal and child health and adult chronic disease onset. Her work focuses on advancing knowledge and advocacy efforts around the relevance of childhood social context for later disparities in health outcomes and the intergenerational transmission of health, including morbidity and mortality related to stress physiology, perceptions of physical and emotional weathering, and health-related behaviors. A main area of interest is in understanding the implications of youth experiences of oppression and marginalization for perceptions of survival and future orientation, and relationships between these experiences and actual trajectories of health. Her work includes focus on understanding relationships between shared sociocultural context and concordance and discordance in cardiometabolic outcomes across generations, including the transition from prediabetes to diabetes and timing in the development of hypertension. Dr. Duke is an academic affiliate with four multidisciplinary research collaborations: the Duke University Population Research Institute, the Duke Center for Child & Family Policy, the Duke Children’s Health & Discovery Initiative, and the Duke Center for Childhood Obesity Research.

Dr. Muiruri is a health services researcher, Assistant Professor in the Duke Department of Population Health Sciences, Assistant Research Professor in the Global Health Institute, and Adjunct lecturer at the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical University College, Moshi Tanzania.
Broadly, his research seeks to improve the quality of healthcare and reduce disparities for persons with multiple chronic conditions both in and outside the United States. His current work focuses on prevention of nonAIDS comorbidities among people living with HIV. His current projects funded by NIAID, NHLBI and NIMHD focus on improving the quality of cardiovascular disease prevention and care among people living with HIV in North Carolina and Tanzania.

Areas of Expertise: Mixed methods, Qualitative methods, Applied Econometrics in Health services Research,  Preference research, Implementation Science, Global Health, Health Policy

Areas of expertise: Implementation Science, Health Services Research, Child Obesity, Pediatric Population Health, Opioids

Asheley Cockrell Skinner, PhD, is a health services researcher whose work addresses a variety of population health issues, particularly implementation of programs to improve the health of vulnerable populations. She is currently a Professor in Population Health Sciences at Duke University. She received her PhD in 2007 in Health Policy and Administration at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  A nationally-known expert in childhood obesity, her work uses a data-driven approach to understand pediatric obesity and improve implementation of evidence-based treatment. She applies this implementation science approach to other populations, including those with opioid use disorder and people who use drugs. In addition to her many roles in research, she also currently serves as the Director of Graduate Studies for Population Health Sciences, directs multiple training programs, and actively mentors undergraduate and graduate students, fellows, and junior faculty.

Dr. Bosworth is a health services researcher and Deputy Director of the Center of Innovation to Accelerate Discovery and Practice Transformation (ADAPT)  at the Durham VA Medical Center. He is also Vice Chair of Education and Professor of Population Health Sciences. He is also a Professor of Medicine, Psychiatry, and Nursing at Duke University Medical Center and Adjunct Professor in Health Policy and Administration at the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research interests comprise three overarching areas of research: 1) clinical research that provides knowledge for improving patients’ treatment adherence and self-management in chronic care; 2) translation research to improve access to quality of care; and 3) eliminate health care disparities. 

Dr. Bosworth is the recipient of an American Heart Association established investigator award, the 2013 VA Undersecretary Award for Outstanding Achievement in Health Services Research (The annual award is the highest honor for VA health services researchers), and a VA Senior Career Scientist Award. In terms of self-management, Dr. Bosworth has expertise developing interventions to improve health behaviors related to hypertension, coronary artery disease, and depression, and has been developing and implementing tailored patient interventions to reduce the burden of other chronic diseases. These trials focus on motivating individuals to initiate health behaviors and sustaining them long term and use members of the healthcare team, particularly pharmacists and nurses. He has been the Principal Investigator of over 30 trials resulting in over 400 peer reviewed publications and four books. This work has been or is being implemented in multiple arenas including Medicaid of North Carolina, private payers, The United Kingdom National Health System Direct, Kaiser Health care system, and the Veterans Affairs.

Areas of Expertise: Health Behavior, Health Services Research, Implementation Science, Health Measurement, and Health Policy