Clinical and Research Perspectives on Identifying and Reducing Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Behavioral Health Treatment

Sponsored by the Alden Memorial Lecture Dr. Benjamin Lê Cook is Director of the Health Equity Research Lab at Cambridge Health Alliance, Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School and Visiting Clinical Associate Professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, NY. Dr. Cook is a health services researcher focused on improving quality of life, and access and quality of treatment for individuals living with mental illness and substance use disorder. He is PI of an NIMH ALACRITY Center dedicated to early detection of mental illness, preventing adverse outcomes, improving quality of care, and fostering equity in treatment for youth from minoritized racial, ethnic, and language backgrounds. His other NIH, AHRQ- and Foundation-funded research tracks healthcare disparities in the U.S. and the impacts of health reform on disparities, seeks to understand discrimination in the patient-provider interaction, and evaluates the impact of hospital-based interventions on health equity. Caryn R. R. Rodgers, PhD (she/her/hers) is an Associate Professor with a dual appointment in Pediatrics and Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. She is a licensed clinical psychologist who serves as the pediatric psychologist at the Children's Hospital at Montefiore in Hematology, Oncology and Cellular Therapy Sickle Cell Disease Program. Her research interests are in promoting adolescent health and adaptive transitions to adulthood among Black and Latinx adolescents/young adults in low-income urban communities, specifically as it relates to mental health disparities, adolescent health risk behaviors (substance use, sexual risk behaviors), and chronic illness (sickle cell disease). She employs contextually relevant resilience/strength-focused models of intervention and engages mixed-methods and participatory approaches. Link to join: https://duke.zoom.us/j/96046100992