It’s finally summer!

I don’t know about you, but I feel like summer took forever to arrive this year. But it’s finally here! I cannot wait to spend some quiet evenings in my backyard with a glass of lemonade, reflecting on how the first half of 2022 has proved to be a “sprint” toward some amazing opportunities at the Curtis Center. Our team continues to work, daily, to advance health equity for marginalized communities in Michigan and across the globe. Needless to say, I think the second half of 2022 will be a similar sprint. 

But things look very different this year compared to how they were last year. For instance, this summer, we are raising our glasses to Associate Director, Dr. Jaclynn Hawkins, who is not only celebrating her one-year anniversary with the Curtis Center, but who was also recently promoted to Associate Professor with tenure at the University of Michigan School of Social Work! Congratulations to Dr. Hawkins for these major accomplishments. In other celebratory news, Dr. James L. Curtis, for whom the center was named, celebrated his 100th birthday in April. We are especially grateful for all that Dr. Curtis has done and continues to do to support our research, training, and outreach efforts at the Curtis Center.

So please join us as we toast to the success of our past, our noteworthy present, and our promising future. 

Cheers!

Daphne C. Watkins, PhD (she/her/hers)

University Diversity and Social Transformation Professor,

Professor of Social Work,

Director, Vivian A. and James L. Curtis Center for Health Equity Research and Training

Dr. Jaclynn Hawkins' work seeks to identify structural and psychosocial factors contributing to health behaviors in African American men with type 2 diabetes. She then utilizes these findings to develop sustainable and effective self-management strategies to optimize African American men’s interactions with health care services. Conceptually, she employs an interdisciplinary framework to consider the implications of this work for health policy and practice and focuses on community involvement and applicability of research findings to real-world situations.

Click here to learn more about Dr. Hawkins

Dr. Lenette Jones is a behavioral nurse scientist interested in eliminating the health disparities affecting African American women with hypertension. Her program of research is focused on uncovering the mechanisms – biological, psychological, social, and physical – of self-management interventions. She explores the neuroprocesses associated with self-management behaviors, such as diet, exercise, and medication-taking, and she examines how health information behavior (seeking, sharing, and use) can be enhanced to support blood pressure self-management.

Click here to read more about Dr. Jones.

Dr. Jamie Mitchell’s interdisciplinary research examines how patient-centered communication between older African American men, their families and physicians can be leveraged to improve men’s cancer and chronic disease outcomes and patient experiences. She also develops, tests and adapts eHealth and psycho-educational interventions designed to support the communication efficacy and disease self-management of older Black men. Her work operates at the intersection of aging, social work, public health, cancer and chronic disease care, and health. 

Click here to read more about Dr. Mitchell.

Dr. Jade Burns was awarded the 2022 Society for Adolescent and Health Medicine (SAHM) Inaugural Racial Justice and Health Equity Award.

Drs. Fernanda Cross and Jaclynn Hawkins are recipients of the U-M Advance Program SUCCEED. The grants help faculty in the arts, humanities and social sciences meet career needs and enhance the climate for and the success of a diverse faculty.

Drs. Jamie Mitchell and Matt Smith’s new research on virtual reality job interview training helping formerly incarcerated adults navigate job applications and land employment is featured in the Grand Challenges for Social Work April 2022 newsletter.

Curtis Center Signature Program Faculty Co-Lead Dr. Anao Zhang won the University of Michigan’s Award for IPE Innovation & Excellence as part of the Collaborative Evolution of Team-Based Decision Making (TBDM) team, on the U-M Health Professionals Education Day on April 5, 2022. Dr. Zhang and Nina Jackson Levin’s Curtis Center Signature Program Initiative (SPI), Adolescent and Young Adult (AYA) Oncology program continues to have a robust progression. Their program’s Patient Experience Survey has received responses from over 300 participants. Also, the AYA Oncology SPI has hosted three symposia on AYA Oncology with a network of national collaborators and the final symposium will be in the Fall of 2022. In addition, Ms. Levin had two articles published in Annals of LGBTQ Public and Population Health this month: one here and this one with Dr. Zhang. 

Nina Jackson Levin, Curtis Center Signature Program Initiative co-lead, received the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Foundation Student Award to support her dissertation titled Virtual Ethnographic Study of Adolescent and Young Adult Oncofertility Programming at Michigan Medicine: Implications for Sexual and Gender Minorities.

The Curtis Center External Advisory Board met with Curtis Center leadership in May. Our board members were impressed with how much we accomplished last year and provided great suggestions for the next steps in our work!