Public Health Sciences Research
The Clemson University Department of Public Health Sciences embraces the land-grant mission to improve the quality of life and economic prosperity in South Carolina and beyond. Our faculty members utilize a team-science approach to improve healthcare delivery and population health through integrating research, education, and service. We believe that multidisciplinary collaboration is the optimal path toward truly making a difference in solving practical, substantive health-related challenges. To that end, we often partner with other researchers at Clemson University and external agencies to address the wide-reaching health challenges facing us today. Our areas of research include the following:
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Community Health Promotion and Behavior
Our health promotion and behavior researchers conduct needs assessments and develop, deliver and evaluate interventions in community-based, school and health care settings. Our populations encompass the entire lifespan from maternal and child health to older adult health. Our methods include community-based participatory research, structural interventions, health coaching by both community lay leaders and health care providers, and ecological models for improving health. Our projects have been designed to influence healthy choices in neighborhoods and communities. Our researchers have interests and expertise in addressing health disparities and chronic illness.
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Epidemiology and Outcomes Research
Our epidemiology and outcomes research team conducts both clinical and population studies on chronic disease epidemiology (e.g. obesity, diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases), nutritional epidemiology, and health disparities. We design and deliver studies to identify risk/beneficial factors for disease etiology and to evaluate the efficacy and effectiveness of novel treatments and interventions. Our priority population includes women, children and middle-aged adults. Our methods include survival analysis, longitudinal analysis, survey analysis, systematic review and meta-analysis.
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Evaluation
Our evaluation team works with large and small health-related programs across South Carolina and nationally. The team places emphasis on effectiveness research and has expertise in formative, process and summative levels of evaluation, mixed method designs, sampling, instrument development and working with stakeholders to interpret and communicate findings. Recent initiatives have included: Zest Quest, Farm to School, Greenville HOPE IV housing authority revitalization, LiveWell Greenville’s Out of School Time initiative and Greenville Health System’s Girls on the Run youth development program.
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Health Policy/Systems
Our health policy and health services faculty engage in research that is policy-relevant at the state and national levels with the aim of improving health services, health outcomes, and population health. We use large datasets and cutting-edge research methodologies including simulation models and geospatial analyses to shed light on a variety of health and health care issues: obesity and built environment; tobacco, alcohol and illicit drug control policies; economic analysis/cost-effectiveness of health-related behaviors; aging; access to health care of the uninsured; community health care; and medical education.
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Global and Population Health
Our global health research addresses key health-related challenges and opportunities in Asia, Latin America and Africa. Our focus areas include infectious disease prevention, hypertension, women’s health, health insurance reform, health care workforce and substance abuse. The skills and expertise among our faculty are applied to the comparative research worldwide and to assist policy makers and health practitioners in the decision-making process.
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Public Health Informatics
Our public health informatics investigators apply biomedical informatics principles to research that often begins in the clinical environment and transcends into families, communities and beyond. Our current projects focus on mobile health solutions to improve patient self-managing of their Type 2 diabetes and enhancing the quality of life of people with asthma. We have also begun development of the next generation of clinical decision support aimed at enhancing medical imaging decision making.
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Faculty Research Interests
Name Research/Expertise Email Cartmell, Kathleen
Health Services Research; Dissemination and Implementation Science; Cancer Prevention and Control; HPV Vaccination; Tobacco Cessation; Palliative Care; Patient Navigation; Global Health
Griffin, Sarah F
School-Based Health; Obesity Prevention; Physical Activity; Nutrition; Community Development; Chronic Disease Prevention; Implementation Science; Program Evaluation
Heo, Moonseong
Clinical trial design and analysis, Addiction, Infectious diseases, Biostatistics, Obesity
Jing, Xia
Data-driven hypothesis generation & visual analytics, Evidence-based clinical decision making, Health IT for rural and under-served populations, Knowledge bases, Knowledge representation and Semantic Web, Telemedicine
Kemper, Karen A
Physical Activity and Chronic Disease; Physical Activity Promotion; Obesity Prevention; Nutrition; Community Initiatives; Body Image; After School Environments; Program Evaluation
Shi, Lu
Adapting and implementing telehealth delivery models of mindfulness-based interventions, Populations with limited resources, Chronic diseases as well as mental/cognitive health, Big data analytics and simulation modeling of population health, Artificial intelligence methods
Rennert, Lior
Biostatistics, Infectious disease epidemiology, Infectious disease modeling, Policy evaluation, Health disparities, Mindfulness
Truong, Khoa Dang
Healthcare for Disadvantaged Population; Tobacco/Alcohol/Drug Control Policies; Obesity; Mental Health; Health Economics
Williams, Joel Edward
Health behavior, Behavioral interventions, Evaluation and measurement, Chronic disease prevention and control
Zhang, Lu
Health disparities in cancer control continuum, Lung cancer screening implementation, Individualized cancer treatment, Surveillance data/Secondary data analyses
Floyd, Sarah
Comparative effectiveness research to generate evidence to guide shared decision-making in orthopaedics, Development and testing of clinical decision support tools to deliver evidence at the point of care, Deep learning approaches to develop outcome measures using clinical note text, Deep learning approaches to analyze diagnostic images to classify the complexity of fractures
Sherrill, Windsor
Population Health, Diabetes Prevention and Management, Chronic Disease Self-Management, Patient-Provider Communication, Health Services Evaluation, Medical Education, Health Disparities, Health Administration, Finance and Policy, Survey Research, Health Policy
Amanda Stover
Dual Diagnosis Research, Substance Use and Abuse, Self-Injury, Suicide Prevention, Rural Health Disparities, Clinical Trial Design and Implementation
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Recent Notable Research Accomplishments
