Faculty

Dr. Israel is a Professor in the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education. She received her Doctorate in Public Health and Master in Public Health degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has published widely in the areas of: the social and physical environmental determinants of health and health inequities; the relationship among stress, social support, control and physical and mental health; and community-based participatory research (CBPR). Dr. Israel has extensive experience conducting CBPR in collaboration with partners in diverse communities. Since 1995, she has worked together with academic and community partners to establish and maintain the Detroit Community-Academic Urban Research Center (Detroit URC). One of the goals of the Center is to foster and support the development of equitable community-academic partnerships focused on understanding and addressing health inequities in the city of Detroit.  The Detroit URC has facilitated the establishment of numerous such CBPR partnerships affiliated with the Center, which are engaged in multiple NIH and Foundation-funded basic etiologic research, intervention research and training projects aimed at increasing knowledge and addressing factors associated with health inequities. Dr. Israel is actively involved in several of these CBPR partnerships and projects examining, for example, the environmental triggers of childhood asthma and strategies for reducing them, the social and physical environmental determinants of cardiovascular disease, the impact of physical activity interventions on heart health, the translation of research findings into policy change, and capacity building for conducting CBPR.  Dr. Israel received the Excellence in Teaching Award at U-M SPH in 2007, and the Harold R. Johnson Diversity Service Award, at U-M in 2013.

Dr.P.H. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; M.P.H. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill