Gwen L Alexander, PhD

Member of the Henry Ford Cancer

Biographical Statement:
I am a behavioral scientist within the Henry Ford Health's Department of Public Health sciences. My training is in public health, behavior change, health communications and program evaluation.

I have worked as PI and co-Investigator on many multi-site intervention studies, comparative effectiveness research, and qualitative studies since 2003. I am also experienced in planning and conducting needs assessment focus groups among providers, parents and teens, which address research topics including primary cancer prevention, disease risk reduction, provider-patient communication related to improving dietary choices, overweight management, asthma self-management, cancer survivorship, breast and colorectal cancer care received, and health disparities in prenatal care.

My career is dedicated to patient communication and education, disease risk reduction behaviors, and targeted prevention messages based on findings from focus groups and in-depth interviews. I am PI of an NIH-funded R01 “Encouraging Young Adults to Make Effective Nutrition Choices: MENU GenY Study” with aims to discover, target and address needs of young adults that will encourage healthy eating. I also have experience in survey methodology and research, design and implementation of targeted and tailored web-based health interventions, recruitment/retention and working with diverse populations.

Research Interests:

• Health Behavior Change
• Provider-patient communication
• Survey design
• Program evaluation