About
Lingling Zhang, ScD, MS, MPA, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences at Clemson University. Prior to joining Clemson, Dr. Zhang was a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Global Health and Population at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and a consultant for the World Bank. She obtained her doctoral degree in International Health Systems from HSPH, her MS in Health Care Policy and Management from Carnegie Mellon University, and her MS in Public Administration from Kansas State University.
She has worked with the Health Survey Program, the Center for Health Information, Statistics, Research, & Evaluation, and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. Her research focus on human resources for health (HRH) started from her professional experience at the Global Equity Initiative at Harvard University where she participated in the preparation work for the 2006 World Health Report and the Lancet China series. She won the Lancet/Global Forum for health anthology competition for young scholars worldwide with her insight of barefoot doctors in the new era. Her research interest lies in promoting health equity and improving quality of care for underserved populations.
She worked with her colleagues to collaborate with GHS on social engagement, education, and stress management programs for elderly dementia patients and their caregivers, as well as on a novel prenatal care group model for low-income pregnant women with diabetes and/or obesity. She has grant applications and ongoing projects in interdisciplinary health with GHS researchers and physicians as well as Clemson faculty.
How their research is transforming health care
Dr. Zhang has been concentrating on community-based, patient-centered interventions with the aim of promoting quality of life for patients and their families. In the process of working with patients and families, she realized to activate and engage the patients and caregivers for long term health management, their voices and expectations need to be heard to achieve a successful and sustainable impact. In reality many programs are implemented without learning from their beneficiaries first, thus she is currently working on a needs assessment among family caregivers of dementia patients and those with chronic conditions. Dr. Zhang’s research has mainly concerned about underserved populations. The overarching goal of her research is to seek a simple, effective, and low-cost approach to bridge and expand communications between health care providers and patients, especially to enhance the engagement of patients and their families to improve their access to information, quality of care, and, ultimately, health status.
Health Research Expertise Keywords
Faculty Scholar, Healthcare delivery system, Community health, Patient engagement, Aging, Human resources for health, Health equity, Quality of care
