Research focused on Health Disparities at UGA CPH spans across multiple disciplines with the understanding that disparities are found in every public health problem. Our research teams focus on how certain populations are disproportionately affected by lack of healthcare access, climate change, and exclusionary policies.
Faculty Experts
Grace Bagwell-Adams
Health policy, food policy, health care & food access
Adam Chen
Health economics, social determinants of health, urban-rural disparities
Lucy Annang Ingram
Racial & ethnic disparities, Black maternal health
Allan Tate
Structural racism, geographic disparity
Danielle Lambert
LGBTQIA online dating abuse, reproductive health care access
Selected Projects & Groups
Athens Well-Being Project
PI: Grace Bagwell Adams
Project Website
AWP is an unprecedented collaboration of all major public institutions in Athens-Clarke County to invest in a representative data collection effort to inform health and human service delivery in our community. Three rounds of survey data collection (2016-2017, 2018-2019, 2021-2022) have occurred to date, along with qualitative data collection (2022). These data have been used to improve our understanding of life in our community and are unique in their level of representation of single-family households and vulnerable groups that historically were unrepresented or underrepresented. AWP collects data across the following domains: health, housing, education, civic vitality, community safety, and economic well being. Special populations (homeless and transitional individuals, public housing residents, Latinx, and older adults in assisted living facilities) are censused to improve the robustness of the data. To date, AWP is the only dataset of its kind that takes a social determinants of health approach in collection and provides individual household level detail on the status of life in Athens, Georgia. Data have been used by institutional stakeholders to meet internal and external legal requirements and accreditation needs, to inform development and implementation of public policy, and to target local resources to meet local need for families and the nonprofit service sector.
Family Matters Georgia
PI: Allan Tate
The Family Matters in Georgia (FMIG) is a multi-site cohort study (Twin Cities, MN, and Athens, GA) that examines multiple manifestations of structural racism and discrimination at individual, neighborhood, and societal/policy levels in 1,000 families with children between ages 8-14. The study aims to understand how parent and child lived experiences of these stressors activate disease processes that affect mental, physical, and behavioral health outcomes across the life course. We will use this information to develop new types of interventions at both individual and higher structural levels (ex, neighborhoods) to help adults and children of diverse race and ethnic backgrounds to thrive from pre-adolescence through adulthood.
