Potential Topics for Professional Paper

Areas of Faculty Expertise and Interest, and Potential Topics for Professional Papers
Master of Public Health, Department of Public Health

Updated January 08, 2023

Primary Advisors

Rashmita Basu

  • COVID-19 pandemic and the US healthcare system/public health strategies
  • Long-term care delivery, costs, and quality of care
  • COVID-19 pandemic and the future of US nursing homes
  • Outcomes and reimbursements of post-acute care use by Medicare beneficiaries
  • Growth in the long-term care market – how it influences individuals’ care seeking behavior
  • Financing, delivery, and public health investment decision-making
  • Family characteristics and informal care for older adults in US-Medicaid enrollment and Medicare home health care use

James Clifford

  • Genetic epidemiology
    • Twin studies
    • GWAS
    • Polygenic scoring (e.g., PRS-CSX, LDPred)
    • Gene-Environment interaction (GxE)
  • Substance use disorders
    • Tobacco – Particularly new and emerging tobacco products (e.g., E-cigarettes, Heat-Not-Burn products)
    • Alcohol
  • Methodological innovation
    • Statistical modeling
    • Algorithms for genetic data (e.g., GW-SEM)
  • Psychological epidemiology
    • Internalizing-Externalizing continuum
    • Comorbidities with substance use

Doyle Cummings

  • Improving Hypertension Control in Vulnerable Populations
  • Role of telehealth in improving access to care in rural areas
  • The emotional consequences of treatment/regimen maintenance in diabetes patients
  • The cardiovascular outcomes associated with medication therapies in at-risk patients
  • Measuring patterns of treatment intensification for hypertension
  • Lipid lowering treatment use in patients with stroke
  • Racial disparities in hypertension and diabetes

Marla Hall

  • Patient-provider communication
  • Cultural competence academic preparation and continuing education
  • Diet and physical activity behaviors among minority and/or rural populations
  • Barriers to healthy eating and physical activity among minority and/or rural populations
  • Access to and utilization of health services and screenings among minority and/or rural populations
  • Health promotion and education activities within community settings

Greg Kearney

  • Environmental/Occupational studies
  • Climate change
  • Respiratory health (COPD and/or asthma)
  • Public health surveillance (infectious, chronic diseases, clusters)
  • Occupational exposures among Latino tree trimmers
  • Toxic Release Inventory and Environmental Justice in ENC
  • Medicaid reimbursement for home-based asthma visits – Making a case for caseworkers in N.C.
  • Mercury exposure and fish consumption patterns among underserved populations in ENC

Aaron Kipp

  • Stigma related to HIV, tuberculosis, and/or substance use (have data on community survey of social determinants related to TB care from project in South Africa)
  • HIV and substance use (particularly marijuana or opioids)
  • Access to and retention in care or treatment (particularly for HIV, TB, substance use)
  • COVID-19 prevention, prevalence, and incidence (have data on community cohort of COVID-19 in Pitt county)
  • Other infectious diseases

Suzanne Lazorick

  • Childhood obesity
  • School-based interventions for childhood obesity
  • Quality improvement in treatment of childhood obesity
  • Assessment of health behavior change in young adolescents
  • Sleep, nutrition, physical activity and technology use behaviors in young adolescents
  • Program evaluation of school-based intervention for childhood obesity

Suzanne Lea

  • Data from GenX Exposure Study: Human health effects of unregulated chemical substances in public drinking water (multiple topics)
  • Qualitative Data Analysis: Disaster recovery and community resilience after H. Matthew and H. Florence
  • Descriptive Data Analysis: Preferences for communication after a hurricane
  • Quantitative Data Analysis: COVID-19 among young adults (multiple topics)
  • Descriptive Data Analysis: chronic kidney disease among Latinx in eastern NC
  • Descriptive and Longitudinal Data Analysis: Cancer rates in eastern North Carolina

Ruth Little

  • Community Based Diabetes Management Programs
  • Palliative Care and Hospice
  • Long Term Care Quality
  • Quality measures and outcomes across health care settings
  • Long Term Care Operation & Delivery: Quality/Staffing/ Survey
  • Substance Abuse Prevention/Prescription Drug misuse

Huabin Luo

  • Public health system research
  • Oral health care access
  • Preventive diabetes care access and quality
  • Nursing home care quality
  • Risk factors of Alzheimer’ disease and related dementia

Kavita Mosalpuria

  • Health Services Research – include topics such as health service utilization, health service expenditures, telehealth, and health care access which may be for prevention or treatment of specific diseases
  • Tobacco Regulatory Science – Includes commercial tobacco and/or nicotine use, prevention, control, policy analysis, economic analysis, behavioral changes, and tobacco-related disparities
  • Health care disparities and inequities – in health service utilization, health service expenditures, tobacco-use related, tobacco and/or nicotine cessation services disparities, and intersectional inequalities
  • Prevention Medicine Research – includes topics such as immunization, cardiovascular disease prevention programs, cancer prevention, social determinants of health, commercial determinants of health, health perception & knowledge, health communications, etc.
  • Implementation Science – Surveillance, monitoring, and evaluation of public health programs, health policies, and disease prevention programs
  • Methodology – quantitative analysis, qualitative analysis, mixed methods, and geospatial mapping using ArcGIS
  • Datasets – Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, Health Information National Trends Survey, Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health study, National Health Interview Survey, National Readmission Database by Healthcare Cost & Utilization Project, Tobacco Longitudinal Mortality Study, Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, American Community Survey, etc.

Stephanie Pitts

  • Examine associations between healthy food access among local residents, and outcomes such as fruit/vegetable purchase and consumption, sugary beverage purchase and consumption, and skin carotenoid status.
  • Conduct a mixed-methods study to examine effectiveness of a Produce Prescription Program.
  • Examine associations between healthy food access, and outcomes such as fruit/vegetable purchase and consumption, sugary beverage purchase and consumption, and skin carotenoid status.
  • Conduct a mixed-methods study to examine effectiveness of a Produce Prescription Program.
  • Examine critical constructs of nutrition security and associations with diet and health outcomes

Lok Pokhrel

  • Risk Assessment of legacy and emerging contaminants
  • Human health risk assessment (HERA) of legacy and emerging contaminants
  • Nanotoxicology (Human Toxicology and Ecotoxicology)
  • Sustainable nano-based technology development (e.g., nanopesticides, antiviral therapeutics, antibacterial agents)
  • Water quality assessment in the changing world
  • Hospital acquired infections (HAIs), antibiotic resistance and multidrug resistant organisms (AR/ MDROs)
  • Environmental health and occupational safety
  • Sustainable food production, food quality and safety
  • Sustainability and green chemistry

Sinan Sousan

  • Agricultural airborne exposure assessment
  • Electronic cigarette exposure assessment
  • COVID-19 exposure assessment
  • Respirator protection assessment
  • Personal exposure assessment
  • Use of low-cost sensors for airborne exposure assessment
  • Heat exposure assessment
  • UV exposure assessment

Nancy Winterbauer

  • Partnership evaluation – African American community engagement in response to COVID-19 – qualitative
  • Organization and functions of health educators in NC local health departments – qualitative
  • Volunteerism – lit review

Content Advisors

William Irish (Brody School of Medicine)

  • Identification of important prognostic factors of disease progression and clinical outcomes, including validation of biomarkers
  • Developing statistical models and assessing their clinical utility
  • Analysis of non-randomized comparative effectiveness studies using multivariable adjustment methods
  • Evaluating factors that affect access to surgical care
  • Health-outcomes following kidney transplantation
  • Surgical oncology outcomes research using publicly available databases, such as the National Cancer Database and the SEER database

Mark Moss (School of Dental Medicine)

  • Strengthening community engagement to improve oral health in CSLC communities
  • Tracking the impact of ECU School of Dental Medicine on oral health workforce distribution and access to care in NC
  • Collaborative research between primary care physicians and dentists to improve health in high-risk populations. Specific interests: diabetes/prediabetes; pregnancy; and young children with high blood lead levels.
  • Addressing sugar-sweetened beverage consumption in general – what works for public health

Wanda Wright (School of Dental Medicine)

  • Tobacco cessation
  • Oral health related quality of life
  • Cultural competency training for health professionals
  • Access to care
  • Health disparities