Barbara Israel – Sustainable Food Systems Initiative

Barbara Israel

Professor of Health Behavior and Health Education, Director of the Detroit Urban Research Center

Department Profile

Barbara A. Israel, MPH, DrPH, received her graduate degrees in public health from the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Israel 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. The Center involves multiple NIH and Foundation-funded basic etiologic research and intervention research projects aimed at increasing knowledge and addressing factors associated with health inequities in Detroit, Michigan. Dr. Israel is actively involved in several of these CBPR projects examining and addressing, for example, the social and physical environmental determinants of cardiovascular disease, the environmental triggers of childhood asthma, access to food and physical activity spaces, and capacity building for and translating research findings into policy change.  She is engaged in fostering community-academic partnerships aimed at addressing food sustainability issues in Detroit.

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