NASHVILLE, Tenn. Melody S. Goodman, MS, PhD, Assistant Professor in the Division of Public Health Sciences Department of Surgery at Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine, visited the Meharry-Vanderbilt Alliance Tuesday to present a lecture titled “Increasing Community Capacity to Partner in Health Disparities Research.”
Dr. Goodman’s research focused in and around the St. Louis area, and she highlighted the racial divide there with respect to geography. White residents, she said, tend to live in the southern and western portions of St. Louis and the surrounding county, while African Americans tend to reside in the northeast. That physical divide, coupled with systemic factors from area businesses and government, place African Americans at a significant disadvantage, she explained.
“We know that disparities are systemic and plausibly avoidable,” Goodman said. “They’re influenced by policies, and they put socially disadvantaged groups at a further disadvantage with respect to their health.”
The problem, she stated, needs a new approach.
“We really need to rethink the types of questions that we’re asking,” Goodman explained. “We need to move from defining problems to start developing solutions. While we’ve been studying health disparities for so long, we still lack an evidence-based approach to disparities reduction.”
She stressed the importance of community and academic partnerships. When they work well together, she said, they can produce something far more beneficial than either entity could on its own.
A full room of area researchers and community leaders attended Goodman’s lecture, which lasted roughly and hour and a half and allowed for questions and comments. Much of her presentation focused on the Community Research Fellows Training program, which she developed to increase research literacy among non-researchers and to enable community members to engage in research. This approach, she believes, is critical to developing successful interventions to eliminate health disparities.
Goodman received her B.S. in Applied Mathematics-Statistics and Economics (double major) from Stony Brook University (SBU), where she was a Minority Access to Research Careers (MARC) National Institutes of Health (NIH) Fellow. In 2003, she received her M.S. in Biostatistics from the Harvard School of Public Health, and in 2006, she received her Ph.D. from the Department of Biostatistics at Harvard University with minors in theoretical statistics and the social determinants of health disparities. Her doctoral work focused on statistical methods for community-based cancer interventions and health disparities research.
Goodman has also been subcontracted by the National Human Genome Research Institute/NIH to analyze patterns of beliefs about the genetic causation of health conditions and health behaviors among community health center patients. She was Principal Investigator on a NIH Partners in Research grant entitled Community Alliance for Research Empowering Social change (CARES).
Photo by Matt Schorr
Dr. Consuelo H. Wilkins, MD, MCSI introduces Dr. Goodman.
About the Meharry-Vanderbilt Alliance
Founded in 1999, the Alliance bridges the institutions of Meharry Medical College and Vanderbilt University. Its mission is to enrich learning and advance clinical research by developing and supporting mutually beneficial partnerships between Meharry Medical College, Vanderbilt University and the communities they serve.
The full audio of Dr. Goodman's lecture is available below:
