Heritage College welcomes population health cluster faculty focused on social determinants of health

newbb电子平台传统骨科医学学院迎来了三名新教员，作为新的人口健康集群的一部分，他们专注于研究健康的社会决定因素.

The new hires are 著Muniz-Terrera, Ph.D., Osteopathic Heritage Foundation Ralph S. Licklider, D.O. Endowed Professor in Health and Aging and a professor of social medicine; 阿利森·休斯, Ph.D., assistant professor of primary care; and 安吉拉·古铁雷斯, Ph.D., MPH, assistant professor of social medicine. Each new faculty member brings a different type of experience and research focus to the Heritage College, 所有人的最终目标都是一样的——研究如何帮助那些在医疗保健中经常被忽视的社会成员.

The three faculty members hired in as a cluster – the third cluster hire the University has completed - and -将与俄亥俄州肌肉骨骼和神经学研究所(OMNI)和糖尿病研究所合作.

“Population health research is interdisciplinary, 这意味着它涉及很多领域，是对大学健康研究机构的补充,“达琳·贝里曼, associate dean for research and innovation and professor of biomedical sciences, 说. 出于这个原因, and also because this type of research generally concentrates on health outcomes, 我们看到了研究人员的潜力，他们可以成为学院强大的基础科学研究项目和我们为服务社区的健康和福祉所做的努力之间的桥梁.”

Muniz-Terrera’s research focuses on aging and brain health, 包括老年痴呆症, as well as studying the modifiable risk factors for cognitive and physical decline in older adults.

After she started studying mathematics and statistics 在乌拉圭, she realized that what she enjoyed most was solving real life problems through the analysis of data. 她获得了博士学位.D. in statistics from the University of Cambridge. 在攻读博士学位期间, Muniz-Terrera专注于试图理解健康老龄化以及如何帮助支持健康老龄化. 她还希望了解并根据个人情况和生活经验量身定制改善健康的建议.

“对我来说, 这一领域的前进道路是通过循证研究和不断发展和使用改进的调查方法,穆尼兹-特雷拉说. “因此，拥有统计学背景，能够看到结果，对我们正在做的研究和将要一起做的研究是不可或缺的.”

在来俄亥俄州之前, Muniz-Terrera是爱丁堡大学痴呆症预防中心生物统计学和流行病学高级讲师, where she worked with others to research aging and brain health initiatives across the university and Europe. She co-led the Integrative Analysis of Longitudinal Studies of Aging, a project involving an extensive network of international collaborators, 目前正在参与brainlar项目, a new initiative investigating brain health in Latin America.

在爱丁堡工作之前, 她也是伦敦大学学院(UCL)的讲师，也是伦敦大学学院MRC终身健康与老龄化部门的项目负责人. She also worked for several years in Cambridge with the MRC Biostatistics Unit.

Muniz-Terrera希望成为这个集群雇佣的一部分，有机会与其他老龄化专家一起工作，同时也成为雅典社区的一部分.

“It was nice to get here and already have people who I could talk with about research,穆尼兹-特雷拉说.

她正在进行的一个项目包括研究一个人的性格特征如何使他们更有可能从事可能影响他们晚年患痴呆症风险的行为. 例如, 喜欢进行身体接触运动的人可能会因为运动相关的创伤性脑损伤而增加晚年患痴呆症的风险. 然而, people with personality traits that make them more prone to engage in healthy behaviors, such as healthy eating and regular exercise, 能降低患痴呆的风险吗.

在苏格兰工作期间, 穆尼兹-特雷拉在农村地区进行公开讲座，帮助人们了解保持健康的方法，并希望将这一理念也带到雅典社区.

Her research has been supported by the Medical 研究 Council, 阿尔茨海默病协会, the National Institutes of Health and various other funding organizations.

休斯是一名行为医学专家，曾在学术界和非营利组织工作，并与制药公司合作，了解患者对上市后药物和疾病管理的看法. 她在糖尿病和行为医学方面的研究重点是糖尿病管理的社会心理挑战, including health equity regarding severe hypoglycemia, 糖尿病困扰, 糖尿病并发症和残疾. 她还倡导制定健康政策，让糖尿病患者及其家人有发言权，让他们更容易获得护理.

Hughes’ interest in disease management piqued when she was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at an early age.

“What I noticed was that not all of us were thriving despite having the same resources,” Hughes 说. Her goal is to apply her lived experience, 她收集的数据, and best clinical practices to transform the health care experiences of others.

来俄亥俄州之前, 休斯在波士顿一家非盈利机构工作, collecting data from people with diabetes. 她还做了一些宣传工作，讨论失明和糖尿病患者如何进行糖尿病自我管理, what health care provider relationships look like, 并检查了儿童医院的数据，以确定那里使用的糖尿病预防是否有证据依据. 她在德克萨斯大学埃尔帕索分校获得临床心理学硕士学位和健康心理学博士学位.

休斯目前的研究着眼于老年糖尿病患者以及医疗保健提供者在治疗糖尿病患者时使用的语言.

She is currently building her lab and a team for the summer, 并指导对卫生政策和宣传感兴趣的学生，并为学生进行研究提供资源和机会. She says she wants to help students understand what chronic disease looks like. 她觉得俄亥俄州创造了一个关怀的环境，重点是确保学生在学校和毕业后都能取得成功.

“Coming here and working in that type of environment has been a positive experience,” Hughes 说. “It’s been really cool to work with the students.”

gutisamurez的研究重点是改善种族和少数民族人口的健康状况和生活质量，这些人口被强行边缘化, devalued or mistreated and typically have less access to resources, 相对于其他群体. She is interested in risk and resilience among older Latinxs and other racial and ethnic minoritized groups with chronic health conditions; community-based and culturally informed research among under-resourced communities in Mexico, California and Ohio; and workforce diversity in health-related sectors.

“I’m looking at the direct factors contributing to wellbeing among these populations, mental health and physical health outcomes, and measuring accelerated aging over the lifespan,古蒂海姆雷斯说, who completed her doctoral training in community health sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles Fielding School of Public Health and has formal training in public health policy, 社会学与教育学.

She previously worked in rural Mexico implementing and evaluating a diabetes self-management program. 最近，她开始探索 执行的 (subset of community health workers) experiences as members of the public health workforce. 她还研究了拉丁美洲人阿尔茨海默病和相关痴呆和认知功能的招募科学. 例如, in a study published in “Gerontology and Geriatric Medicine,她最近记录了数字鸿沟在招募拉丁裔痴呆症研究人员方面日益扩大的差距中所起的作用.

古蒂萨梅雷斯是在主修社会学并参加了一门社会分层课程后接触到这些研究领域的，这门课程让她看到了自己成长过程中所看到的模式, where some individuals tend to experience a higher burden of chronic health and other disadvantages. The course gave her the knowledge and skills to systematically explore health disparities, 现在是她研究的基础, which she plans to continue in collaboration with her fellow cluster hires.

“I’ve made the argument before that cluster hires are important for enhancing diversity and social support, so I’m truly gratefully to be a part of this cluster hire and to begin working with Drs. Muniz-Terrera and Hughes on projects focused on aging,” she added.

Currently, Gutiérrez is collaborating with fellow Heritage College professor Berkeley Franz, Ph.D., an associate professor and Osteopathic Heritage Foundation Ralph S. Licklider, D.O., Endowed 教师 Fellow in Population Health Science, on a paper that documents strategies hospitals use for diabetes prevention outreach. 他们正在研究这些战略是否使用基于证据的方法，以及它们是否侧重于个人层面或社区层面的因素.

“So far newbb电子平台 and HCOM have been very welcoming and collaborative, 是什么让HCOM脱颖而出, 相对于其他地方. I’m excited for the support provided and the infrastructure already in place to help us succeed,古蒂海姆雷兹说.