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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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.
Research Grants Funded:
Cartmell, Kathleen. Implementation of Home-Based Palliative Care in Limited Resource Settings. Medical University of South Carolina (FDP)
Cartmell, Kathleen. Improving Immunization Information System Implementation In Community Pharmacies. University of South Carolina.
Cartmell, Kathleen. SC CADRE Year 5. Medical University of South Carolina (FDP)
Cartmell, Kathleen. Development and Pilot Testing of a 4H Vaccine Project Workbook.Medical University of South Carolina (FDP).
Cartmell, Kathleen. South Carolina Cancer Disparities Research Center (SC CADRE) - Bridge. Medical University of South Carolina (FDP).
Griffin, Sarah F. Community-Driven Approaches to Address Factors Contributing to Structural Racism in Public Health. Live Well Greenville
Griffin, Sarah F. South Carolina County Health Extension: High Obesity Prevention and Elimination. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/DHHS
Griffin, Sarah F. Evaluation of Bradshaw Institute for Comprehensive School Health Promotion: Increasing Community Based Healthy Eating and Physical Activity. Greenville Health System (GHS) Evaluation of Community Appropriateness of a Pediatric Wellness Program. Prisma Health
Griffin, Sarah F. CDC-HOP Supplemental Project - Childhood Obesity Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/DHHS
Griffin, Sarah F. Bradshaw Institute for Community Child Health and Advocacy Embedded Student Research Fellow. Prisma Health
Kemper, Karen. Preventing falls among older adults in Upstate South Carolina through hospital emergency department screenings, referrals, & follow-up. Prisma Health
Joel, Williams. Smart Walk: A Culturally Tailored Smartphone-delivered Physical Activity Intervention for Reduction of Cardiometabolic Disease Risk among African American Women. Arizona State University (FDP)
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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.
Research Grants Funded:
Shi, Lu. Did desegregation reduce cognitive decline across racial groups? University of South Carolina.
Shi, Lu. Telehealth Focused Rural Health Research Center Cooperative Agreement. University of Arkansas.
Zhang, Lu. Produce prescription and nutritional education to improve health outcomes of patients with type-2 diabetes living in a rural and medically underserved county in South Carolina
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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.
Research Grants Funded:
Griffin, Sarah F. Carolina Center on Alzheimer's Disease and Minority Research (CCADMR) - Research Education Core (Training).University of South Carolina
Griffin, Sarah F. Early Detection of Cognitive Decline: Examining Motor and IADL Functions in the Context of Neighborhood Disadvantage. University of South Carolina
Griffin, Sarah F. Community-Driven Approaches to Address Factors Contributing to Structural Racism in Public Health. Live Well Greenville
Griffin, Sarah F. South Carolina County Health Extension: High Obesity Prevention and Elimination. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/DHHS
Griffin, Sarah F. Evaluation of Bradshaw Institute for Comprehensive School Health Promotion: Increasing Community Based Healthy Eating and Physical Activity. Greenville Health System (GHS) Evaluation of Community Appropriateness of a Pediatric Wellness Program. Prisma Health
Griffin, Sarah F. CDC-HOP Supplemental Project - Childhood Obesity Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/DHHS
Griffin, Sarah F. Bradshaw Institute for Community Child Health and Advocacy Embedded Student Research Fellow. Prisma Health
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Health Policy and Health Services Research
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.
Research Grants Funded:
Gimbel, Ronald Wand Jing, Xia. SC Biomedical Informatics and Data Science for Health Equity Research Training - (SC BIDS4HEALTH). Medical University of South Carolina (FDP).
Sherrill, Windsor Westbrook. South Carolina COBRE for Translational Research Improving Musculoskeletal Health (SC-TRIMH). NIH (National Institutes of Health/DHHS)
Sherrill, Windsor Westbrook. Embedding of Clemson University Faculty in Greenville Health System Clinical Departments. Greenville Health System (GHS).
Sherrill, Windsor Westbrook. Enabling precision medicine: Increasing access to DSMES via an ehr-based clinical decision support tool. American Diabetes Association, Inc.
Sherrill, Windsor Westbrook. Expanding Treatment and Services for NAS for Mothers and Babies - Pickens County. Pickens County
Shi, Lu. Did desegregation reduce cognitive decline across racial groups? University of South Carolina.
Shi, Lu. Telehealth Focused Rural Health Research Center Cooperative Agreement. University of Arkansas.
Heo, Moonseong. Patient-Centered Model of HCV Care for People who Inject Drugs. Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI)
Heo, Moonseong. The Development and Evaluation of a Patient-Centered Opioid Discharge Prescribing Guideline with the Electronic Health Record of a Health System. University of South Carolina.
Moonseong Heo. Development of an integrated intervention involving recovery Coaching and cognitive behavioral therapy for opioid use disorder. NIH (National Institutes of Health/DHHS).
Heo, Moonseong. Psychosocial Intervention, Maternal Inflammation, and Birth Outcomes: Centering vs. Routing Prenatal Care (PIINC). NorthShore University Health System
Floyd, Sarah Bauer. Effects of Musculoskeletal Surgery Rates on nOutcomes. University of South Carolina
Floyd, Sarah Bauer. The Development of an EHR-Based Measure of Orthopaedic Treatment Success. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality/DHHS
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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.
Research Grants Funded:
Cartmell, Kathleen. Implementation of Home-Based Palliative Care in Limited Resource Settings. Medical University of South Carolina (FDP)
Cartmell, Kathleen. Improving Immunization Information System Implementation In Community Pharmacies. University of South Carolina.
Cartmell, Kathleen. SC CADRE Year 5. Medical University of South Carolina (FDP)
Cartmell, Kathleen. Development and Pilot Testing of a 4H Vaccine Project Workbook. Medical University of South Carolina (FDP).
Cartmell, Kathleen. South Carolina Cancer Disparities Research Center (SC CADRE) - Bridge. Medical University of South Carolina (FDP).
Gimbel, Ronald Wand Jing, Xia. SC Biomedical Informatics and Data Science for Health Equity Research Training - (SC BIDS4HEALTH). Medical University of South Carolina (FDP).
Rennert, Lior. A data-driven approach to identify and target high-risk rural communities via mobile health clinics. South Carolina Center for Rural and Primary Healthcare.
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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.
Research Grants Funded:
Gimbel, Ronald Wand Jing, Xia. SC Biomedical Informatics and Data Science for Health Equity Research Training - (SC BIDS4HEALTH). Medical University of South Carolina (FDP).
Jing, Xia. Open, interoperable, and configurable clinical decision support modules for OpenMRS, OpenEMR, and beyond. NIH (National Institutes of Health/DHHS)
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Modeling
Research Grants Funded:
Rennert, Lior. RAPID: Archiving COVID-19 Data to Support Institutional Decision-Making Research. NSF (National Science Foundation)
Rennert, Lior. Building a Campus-Community Network to Help End the Pandemic. Interfaith Youth Core
Rennert, Lior. Developing a dynamic modeling framework for surveillance, prediction and real-time resource allocation to reduce health disparities during Covid-19 and future pandemics. DHHS (Department of Health & Human Services)
Shi, Lu. Using agent-based modeling to compare strategies that can reduce rural-urban disparities in cardiovascular disease. New York University
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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