Training and Pilot Projects Core Members

Core Leaders

William Cunningham, M.D., MPH
UCLA School Of Medicine
UCLA Med-GIM-HSR, Box 951772
31-254A CHS,
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1772
Phone: (310) 206-5838
Fax: (310) 825-3317
wcunningham@mednet.ucla.edu

Dr. William E. Cunningham is a Professor in the Department of Health Services, School of Public Health, and in the Division of General Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine, UCLA School of Medicine. He received his training in health services research through the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program, and received his MPH degree in epidemiology from UCLA. Dr. Cunningham is author of a range of manuscripts on access to medical care, disparities, and health outcomes. He is currently PI of a HRSA-funded Special Project of National Significance (SPNS) where he is conducting a case-management intervention study for vulnerable persons with HIV infection. He is also co-PI on an NICHD-funded project on gender and HIV risk prevention. Dr. Cunningham has authored more than 60 scientific papers many of which address access to care, barriers to medical care, use of HIV services, racial disparities, HIV prevention and health outcomes. He is Director of the Investigator Development Core for the NIA-funded Resource Centers for Minority Aging Research (RCMAR), Director of the Training Core for the NCMHD-funded Project EXPORT, and an Associate Director of the newly refunded Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program at UCLA. He teaches courses on race, ethnicity and health, health services organization and outcomes and effectiveness research.

Michael Rodriguez, M.D., MPH
Associate Professor of Family Medicine
Associate Professor
UCLA Department of Family Medicine
924 Westwood Blvd, Suite 650
Los Angeles, CA 90024
Phone: (310) 794-0294
Fax: (310) 794-0568
mrodriguez@mednet.ucla.edu

Dr. Michael A. Rodriguez is an Associate Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Dr. Rodriguez completed his undergraduate training at the University of California, Berkeley, attended medical school at UCLA, and completed his residency at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He obtained his public health degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health, was a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at Stanford University, and a Picker/Commonwealth Scholar at UCSF.

Dr. Rodriguez conducts research, works with direct service and advocacy organizations, and helps inform policy on violence prevention and the healthcare needs of vulnerable populations. He is a leading researcher in the areas of the role of the healthcare system in addressing abuse and the healthcare needs of ethnically diverse populations across the age spectrum. He has used qualitative and quantitative methods to develop conceptual frameworks for understanding cultural issues, barriers to help seeking, and for improving the health care response to domestic violence. He has also developed effective techniques to recruit vulnerable populations with substantial socioeconomic and racial/ethnic diversity. Dr. Rodriguez is currently PI of a cohort study of domestic violence, a study to examine the impact of domestic violence on the health related quality of life of pregnant Latinas attending a large health maintenance organization in Los Angeles. He is also PI of an investigation to examine clinician, patient and caregiver perspectives of the role of health care systems in addressing elder abuse and neglect in ethnically diverse populations.

Core Faculty

Ronald M. Andersen, Ph.D.
Faculty Associate, UCLA Center for Health Policy Research
Professor of Health Services and Sociology
UCLA School of Public Health
Department of Health Services
Box 951772
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1772
Phone: (310) 206-1810
Fax: (310) 825-3317
Randerse@ucla.edu

Dr. Ron Andersen is the Wasserman Professor Emeritus Professor Department of Health Services, UCLA School of Public Health, and Professor Emeritus, UCLA Department of Sociology. He was previously Professor at the University of Chicago, serving for ten years as director of the Center for Health Administration Studies and the Graduate Program in Health Administration. Dr. Andersen has studied access to medical care for his 40-year professional career. He developed the Behavioral Model of Health Services Use that has been used extensively nationally and internationally as a framework for utilization and cost studies of general populations as well as special studies of minorities, low income, children, women, the elderly, oral health, the homeless and the HIV positive population. He has directed three national surveys of access to care and has led numerous evaluations of local and regional populations and programs designed to promote access to medical care. His other research interests include international comparisons of health services systems, graduate medical education curriculum, physician health services organization integration, and evaluations of geriatric and primary care delivery.

Richard S. Baker, M.D.
RCMI Program Director
Assistant Dean, Office of Research
Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science
1731 East 120th Street
Los Angeles, CA 90059
Phone: (323) 563-5911
Fax: (323) 563-4889
rickbaker4@aol.com
rbaker2@ucla.edu

Dr. Richard S. Baker is a tenured, board certified ophthalmologist. He is an Associate Professor in the Department of Ophthalmology at Charles R. Drew University and at the Jules Stein Eye Institute at the UCLA Geffen School of Medicine. Dr. Baker received his undergraduate degree in Physics from Stanford University. He received a medical doctorate degree from Harvard Medical School and from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a thesis concentration in biostatistics and epidemiology. Postdoctoral training includes a fellowship at the Joslin Diabetes Center, Harvard Medical School, and a National Institutes of Health fellowship in chronic disease epidemiology at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. Currently Dr. Baker serves as the Assistant Dean of research for Charles Drew University, Director of the Research Centers in Minority Institutions/National Institutes of Health Biomedical Research Center at Charles Drew University, Executive Director and co-founder of the Urban Telemedicine Centers of Excellence, and co-founder of the Los Angeles Eye Institute.

Pilot Investigators

Anne Pebley, Ph.D.
UCLA School of Public Health / Department of Sociology
UCLA Pub Hlth-Cmnty Hlth Sci, Box 951563
3587 FH
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1563
Phone:
(310) 794-4309
Fax: (310) 794-1805
pebley@ucla.edu

Dr. Anne R. Pebley is the Bixby Professor of Population Studies in the School of Public Health and Department of Sociology at UCLA. Her research has focused on fertility and marriage patterns, children's health and welfare, and family organization in the United States and other countries. She has collaborated with researchers and institutions in Central America, West, Central, and East Africa, and Bangladesh and India. Currently, one of her major research projects is a longitudinal survey of the effects of neighborhoods on children in Los Angeles County, known as the Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey. She is also the Chair of Community Health Sciences, UCLA School of Public Health.

Mayer Davidson, M.D.
Program Director
Center for Clinical Research Excellence in Diabetes and Metabolism
Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science
1731 East 120th Street
Los Angeles, CA 90059
Phone: (323) 357-3439
mayerdavidson@cdrewu.edu

Dr. Mayer B. Davidson is Professor of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine and Director of the Clinical Trials Unit at Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science. Dr. Davidson was President of the American Diabetes Association for 1997-1998. A renowned researcher and speaker on type 2 diabetes and insulin resistance, Dr. Davidson has presented hundreds of lectures nationally. He has served on the Editorial Boards of Diabetes Care, Diabetes Spectrum, Clinical Diabetes, Geriatrics and the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism and was a Consulting Editor of Hippocrates. He currently serves on the Editorial Boards of Diabetes Research & Clinical Practice. He is an Associate Editor of Endo Trends and was the Founding Editor of Current Diabetes Reports. Currently, he is the Editor-in-Chief of Diabetes Care. Dr. Davidson’s contributions to the medical literature include 148 scientific papers, 29 book chapters, and 89 reviews, editorials, and invited articles. He is the main author of the textbook, Diabetes Mellitus: Diagnosis and Treatment, the 4th edition of which was published in 1998 and has been translated into Italian and Portuguese. The fifth edition, Davidson’s Diabetes Mellitus: Diagnosis and Treatment, was updated by two of his colleagues and published in 2004. Finally, he wrote (along with a professional writer) The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Type 2 Diabetes.

Yuhua Bao, Ph.D.
1100 Glendon Ave., Ste. 2010
Los Angeles, CA 90024
Phone: 310-794-3081
Fax: 310-794-8529
yuhuabao@mednet.ucla

Arleen Brown, M.D., Ph.D.
UCLA Med-GIM & HSR
911 Broxton Plz, Box 951736
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1736
Phone: (310) 794-6047 or (310) 794-3828
Fax: (310) 794-0766
abrown@mednet.ucla.edu

Dr. Arlene Brown is a general internist and health services researcher with an interest in racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities. Her EXPORT pilot projects focused on the role of neighborhood factors in the health of adults with chronic conditions. Persons with chronic conditions, such as hypertension, arthritis, diabetes, heart disease, or chronic lung disease must often engage in complex medication, dietary, and exercise regimens. Adults with these conditions may be particularly vulnerable to harmful neighborhood influences, such as toxic environments, poor access to health care services, or limited availability of healthy foods or safe places to exercise. For her EXPORT pilot project, Dr. Brown conducted analyses of the Los Angeles Family and Neighborhoods Study (L.A. FANS), a study of families in L.A. County and their neighborhoods. A second project measured the number and type of food stores in different neighborhoods and found that in areas with a high concentration of convenience stores, participants with chronic conditions reported poorer health status than those in areas with fewer of these types of stores. There were no neighborhood differences for persons without a chronic condition. Dr. Brown is currently conducting a series of focus groups with older persons with chronic conditions to better understand their perceptions of the local environment and the role neighborhood factors play in the management of their chronic conditions.

Kenrick Duru, M.D.
UCLA School of Medicine
UCLA Med-GIM-HSR
911 Broxton Plaza Box 951736
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1736
Phone: (310) 794-8138
Fax: (310) 794-0766
kduru@mednet.ucla.edu

Brian K. Finch, Ph.D.
RAND Health
1776 Main Street
P.O. Box 2138
Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138
Phone:  310-393-0411 x6386
Fax:  310-393-4818
Brian_Finch@rand.org

Dr. Brian K. Finch is a Sociologist and Professor of Public Policy at RAND and a Health Disparities Scholar with the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities (National Institutes of Health). He is also a core member of the RAND Center for Population Health and Health Disparities. Before joining RAND, Dr. Finch was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Scholar in the School of Public Health at the University of California at Berkeley. He received his B.A. in Peace & Conflict Studies and Ethnic Studies from the University of California at Berkeley and his Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Finch's work crosses the disciplinary boundaries of social demography, social epidemiology, and medical sociology to investigate the causes and correlates of population health disparities, specifically socioeconomic and race/ethnic disparities in health outcomes and behaviors among adults and biological/social interactions across the early life-course. He is a Principal- or Co Principal- Investigator on several NIH- and DHHS-funded projects researching population health disparities. His research also explicitly addresses the effect of neighborhood context on health behaviors using multi-level methodologies including hierarchical linear models and complex survival models. Dr. Finch received his Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Texas at Austin.

Sheba M. George, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Research Center for Minority Institutions
Multicultural Health and Health Disparities Core
Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science
2594 Industry Way
Lynwood, CA, 90262
Phone: (323) 310-761-4716
shgeorge@cdrewu.edu

Dr. Sheba George received her undergraduate degree in Sociology from Pomona College in Claremont, California. She was awarded her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Sociology from the University of California at Berkeley. Since completing her doctorate, Dr. George has been a visiting scholar at UCLA and has consulted on research projects for Kaiser Permanente's Division of Research. Currently, she is completing a NIMH AIDS Research Training postdoctoral fellowship in the Sociology Department at UCLA.

Dr. George is the co-author of Global Ethnography: Forces, Connections and Imaginations in a Postmodern World (University of California Press, 2000). Her sole-authored second book, based on her dissertation work, is titled "When Women Come First: Gender and Class in Transnational Migration” (University of California Press, 2005, http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9860.html). In this book, she embarks from questions raised by an unusual immigration pattern where women- Indian Christian nurses- migrate first and men follow, resulting in the post immigration upward mobility for women and the concurrent male loss of status. Using qualitative methods, she examines the implications of this pattern in three spheres: work, home and immigrant community. She also looks at how transnational ties back to the sending community affect the reproduction and the transformation of gender relations in the immigrant community.

Dr. George has several research interests, which fall under the umbrella of her broader research concern about the intersection of race, class and gender inequities and health disparities. Building on her dissertation work, she is interested in qualitatively studying the medical encounters between clinicians who are international medical graduates and make up 25% of the U.S. medical workforce and their underserved, multiethnic and often immigrant, urban patient populations. She is also interested in the intersections of technology and health – particularly in terms of how minority, urban patients and providers experience new technologies such as telemedicine. Finally, Dr.George is interested in the experiences of and prevention efforts surrounding HIV/AIDS, both domestically and internationally.

Nina T. Harawa, M.P.H, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science
Augustus F. Hawkins Building, Room 3090
1731 East 120th Street
Los Angeles, CA 90059
Phone: 323 563-5899
ninaharawa@cdrewu.edu

Dr. Nina T. Harawa completed her doctoral studies at the University of California, Los Angeles with a focus on Black/White disparities in health, particularly in sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). She is interested in the general question of how to better understand, conceptualize, and model racial/ethnic disparities in health outcomes and health care utilization. Dr. Harawa plans to conduct future research that involves better understanding the role of partnership patterns, cultural factors, and neuropsychoimmunology in racial/ethnic disparities in STDs. She is currently a principal investigator on this University-wide AIDS Research Program (UARP)-funded study of HIV. Her Project EXPORT work includes a pilot study of biomarkers for allostatic load in this population.
Dr. Harawa enjoys working actively with local communities to develop collaborative and responsive research projects and sharing what is already known about health outcomes among people of color. She has presented to a variety of groups including the National Association of Black Women Physicians, the HIV/AIDS Second District Coalition, the Los Angeles Physician’s AIDS Forum, the UCLA Health Services Research seminar, the LASD Professional Staff Association, and numerous local HIV/AIDS service organizations and planning bodies. She has also appeared in four different educational videos or televised programs on HIV/AIDS among people of color. She is a member of the African American AIDS Working Group for California and the CDC Measures of Racism Working Group.

Sheryl Kataoka Endo, M.D., MSHS
UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute
Department of Psychiatry
Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
Assistant Professor in Residence
10920 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 300
Los Angeles, CA 90024-6505
Mailcode: 708246
Phone: 310.794.3727
Fax: 310.794.3724
skataoka@ucla.edu

Dr. Sheryl Kataoka Endo is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences. A child psychiatrist, Dr. Kataoka's research has focused on improving the access to and quality of mental health care for ethnic minority children and their families, especially through non-traditional delivery systems such as schools. She received her M.D. from George Washington University and her M.S.H.S. from UCLA.

In an analysis of several national data sets, Dr. Kataoka examined who has unmet need for child mental health services and was the first to document the level of unmet need for these services on a national level. Building on that work, Dr. Kataoka has been investigating alternative ways of delivering guideline-based mental health care in schools to low income, primarily minority students. Dr Kataoka is a co-principal investigator of The Cognitive Behavioral Intervention for Trauma in Schools program (CBITS), a collaborative project with the Los Angeles School District (LAUSD) that provides mental health screening and treatment in schools for students who have been exposed to violence. She is also piloting the CBITS program in the faith-based community, in collaboration with QueensCare Health and Faith Partnership, a non-profit organization that promotes health care to a network of faith organizations in Los Angeles. In addition, Dr. Kataoka is examining the quality of mental health services for special education students through a grant from the MacArthur Foundation, and in an NIMH grant, she will be studying development and implementation of a quality improvement program for special education counselors focusing on use of evidence based practices.

Keisha Carr Paxton, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Charles Drew University
1731 E. 120th Street, Building N
Los Angeles, CA 90059
Phone: 323-357-3476
Fax: 323-357-3477
keishapaxton@cdrewu.edu

Dr. Keisha Carr Paxton uses her multidimensional training to address myriad issues facing African Americans in urban settings. Currently, she is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Charles Drew University and has been affiliated with Drew since 2001. Dr. Paxton’s research focuses on sexual risk behavior among African American adolescents and young adults, HIV/STD prevention, sexual health program development for African-American women and the intersection of mental health and risk behavior. She is currently funded by the National Institutes of Health to develop a sexual health program for African American young women that targets friendship groups. Additionally, Dr. Paxton engages in several community-academia partnerships. She is a core faculty member in the Faculty-Community Health Leadership Program. In the project, Drew partners with universities and community programs in Cuba to develop means to improve health indicators in South Los Angeles. Dr. Paxton has amassed several years of working in the Los Angeles community. She has worked closely with health service providers and grassroots organizations providing consultation regarding service provision, evaluation, and research activities. Dr. Paxton is a fellow in the NIH National Center on Health Disparities and Minority Health’s Loan Repayment Program. She earned her Ph.D. in clinical/community psychology from DePaul University and completed both her undergraduate and postdoctoral training at UCLA.

Roberto Vargas, MD, MPH
UCLA Division of General Internal Medicine
& Health Services Research
911 Broxton Avenue, #101
Box 951736
Los Angeles, California 90095-1736
Phone: 310-794-3703
RBVargas@mednet.ucla.edu

Dr. Roberto Vargas is a natural scientist at RAND and a clinical instructor of medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research at the Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. His research interests examine the role of access to health care and variation in health policies on population level health. As part of the ICICE project he is investigating the impact of the chronic care model breakthrough series on cardiovascular risk in patients with diabetes. He is also a co-principle investigator of a RAND research team examining interventions to reduce racial, ethnic, and poverty driven disparities in breast cancer care. In addition he is examining the impact of state specific health policies on health outcomes in a national sample of Medicaid enrollees and the role of access to care and health policies on disparities in health in patients in California. Dr. Vargas is also examining the impact of chronic kidney disease on population health and health disparities as part of the NCRR/NIH Comprehensive Center for Health Disparities for Chronic Kidney Disease.