About
Dr. Joel Williams is an associate professor in the department of public health sciences and College of Behavioral, Social and Health Sciences associate dean for graduate studies. His academic training is in the areas of exercise science, public health and applied evaluation. He also has clinical experience working in sports medicine and hospital settings. Dr. Williams’ area of expertise is implementation and evaluation of health promotion and disease prevention programs and interventions. Joel has worked on projects supported by a variety of funders, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institutes of Child Health and Human Development, National Cancer Institute, National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, U.S. Department of Agriculture/National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Health Resources and Services Administration, U.S. Department of Defense, and various state agencies and private foundations. Most of his work has involved health behavior measurement and interventions. Dr. Williams has developed study protocols and supervised teams collecting data for both community and clinical trials and has served as a methodologist or evaluator. His continued research interests are in obesity prevention and control in community and clinical settings.
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How is their research is transforming health care
Dr. Williams is a Co-Investigator, and site PI, on a National Institutes of Health National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute study (R01HL168170-01, PI: Rodney Joseph, 04/01/2023 – 03/31/2028) titled Smart Walk: A culturally tailored smartphone-delivered physical activity intervention to reduce cardiometabolic disease among African American Women. The goal of this project is to conduct a fully powered efficacy trail the Smart Walk intervention with obese African American women. In a two-arm randomized trial, 240 African American women, aged 24-65 with BMI >30, receive either the Smart Walk intervention (4-mo active PA intervention followed by an 8-mo minimal con-tact maintenance period) or a Fitbit-only comparison arm. If successful, the structured, theory-based, culturally tailored PA intervention can be replicated in communities across the US in a multi-site pragmatic trial, which could have large-scale implications for reducing cardiometabolic health disparities among African American women. Primary outcomes of this trial include accelerometer-measured and self-reported moderate to vigorous physical activity. Secondary outcomes include examining impacts on traditional risk factors for cardiometabolic disease (e.g., BMI, blood pressure, serum lipid profiles, glucose intolerance, insulin resistance) as well as the novel risk factors of and cardiovascular fitness, aortic pulse wave velocity, and pro-inflammation biomarkers of TNF-α and IL-β1.
Health Research Expertise Keywords
Faculty Scholar, Chronic disease, Mobile technology, Self-management, Health behavior, Physical activity, Minority health
