Center for Innovation in Sleep Self-Management
The Center for Innovation in Sleep Self-Management is aimed at developing, testing and implementing self-management interventions to help adults and children with chronic illnesses sleep better and improve their health.
The center will leverage self-monitoring technologies, such as smart home sensors that track noise, light and temperature; mobile applications that measure dietary, exercise and caffeine intake; and wrist monitors that measure sleep-wake activity and light levels. These tools will allow patients to monitor their sleep behavior, set goals and receive feedback on adopting healthy behaviors.
The Center brings together faculty, staff, students and members of the community to research and find solutions to pressing social problems through a variety of research and education projects.
The Center’s research and educational programs in the humanities and social sciences focus on community issues, social justice leadership, labor and civil rights concerns, and multi-cultural education.
The Center collaborates with other projects and centers and helps to support the Community and Social Change degree track of the Masters of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences department at the University of Washington Tacoma.
The Evans School Policy Analysis and Research Group (EPAR) uses an innovative student-faculty team model to provide ongoing rigorous, applied research and analysis to international development stakeholders.
EPAR’s work is founded on a multi-disciplinary framework for student- and faculty-led research contributing to more informed decision-making and better use of critical philanthropic dollars.
The Technology & Social Change Group (TASCHA) at the University of Washington Information School explores the design, use, and effects of information and communication technologies in communities facing social and economic challenges.
With experience in over 50 countries, TASCHA brings together a multidisciplinary network of researchers, practitioners, and policy experts to advance knowledge, create public resources, and improve policy and program design.
The West Coast Poverty Center works to bridge the gaps between antipoverty research, practice, and policy by connecting scholars, policymakers and practitioners; facilitating important social policy research; magnifying the reach of new knowledge; and fostering the next generation of antipoverty scholars.
The Center for Child and Family Well-being promotes the positive development and well-being of children, from infancy through adolescence, particularly those experiencing disadvantage and adversity. The center uses a bioecological approach to children’s well-being addressing the inter-dependence of children’s social, emotional, cognitive and physical development, as they are shaped by individual, interpersonal, community and broader socioeconomic, social and cultural forces. The interactions among these factors influence whether children have vulnerable or resilient responses to economic disadvantage and adversity. CCFW supports children’s resilience by infusing mindfulness, compassion, and social-emotional skills into the lives of children, their parents, caregivers, teachers and the professionals serving them.
CCFW accomplishes our goals by engendering, translating, applying and sharing knowledge that stems from our interdisciplinary research conducted by over 20 faculty affiliates from across the University of Washington. Our research serves as the foundation on which we build education, professional training, prevention, intervention, outreach and advocacy activities of the center. We are committed to serving as a resource and partner in promoting the well-being of children and families locally and globally.
The Indigenous Wellness Research Institute seeks to marshal community, tribal, academic, and governmental resources toward innovative, culture-centered interdisciplinary, collaborative social and behavioral research and education.
The Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies supports a network of scholars in cutting-edge research, education, and outreach about work, workers and their organizations.
The Center engages students in labor studies through courses and field work. It promotes connections between students, faculty, and labor communities locally and around the world, and inform policy makers about issues confronting workers.
PORPP’s Vision:
To be a global leader in generating knowledge to improve individual and population health through transformative learning, research, and dissemination about the effectiveness, safety, and value of medical products, services, and policies.
For twenty years PORPP has been a leader in studying, disseminating and informing policy about the impact of pharmaceuticals and other medical care on individual and population health and training the next generation of outcomes researchers. We are primed to morph into an higher organizational unit (a center or institute) in the coming year. We look forward to sustaining the
A multi-disciplinary center at the University of Washington School of Dentistry that has been built on strong community partnerships. A common goal of the research conducted by Center investigators is to develop and disseminate practical, evidence-based approaches to reduce oral health problems experienced by poor, minority or rural children and adults who suffer a disproportionate share of oral disease.
Over the past 30 years, children in the United States have become gradually less active, less able to do physical activities, and less healthy. Inactive lifestyles are taking away the capacity of children and adolescents to function and develop normally and to achieve peak health.
UW Medicine’s Sports Health and Safety Institute (SHSI) is an international education, advocacy and research organization devoted to helping people pursue an active lifestyle while providing tools to keep them safe and speed healing after illness or injury.
Founded in 2015, SHSI focuses on three core activities:
- Education. Safe sports, good health decisions, excellent care and informed policy begin with education. The Institute’s educational materials are freely available to parents, athletes, coaches and medical professionals.
- Advocacy. SHSI pursues policies and supports legislation that advance sports safety and health.
- Research. SHSI collaborates with researchers to identify best practices for effective public health education, to change behaviors and make sports safer, and to advance knowledge about sports-related concussion.
The Center for Cardiovascular Biology is dedicated to discovering the molecular basis of cardiovascular disease, harnessing this information to develop new therapies, and training the next generation of cardiovascular physicians and scientists.
The Northwest Center for Occupational Health and Safety (NWCOHS) is a multi-component training program dedicated to prevention of work-related injury and illness in the four federal Region X states of Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington by providing academic training for professional workforce needs and professional education and research services to employers, workers, and health and safety professionals.
Since 1977, the NWCOHS has been funded as a National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Education and Research Center (ERC), the only one in the region.
The Healthy Brain Research Network (HBRN) is a thematic network within the CDC Prevention Research Centers Program that brings together interdisciplinary expertise from six leading academic institutions across the U.S. and draws upon the collaborative strengths of established academic-community partnerships. HBRN efforts are informed by the work of The Healthy Brain Initiative: The Public Health Road Map for State and National Partnerships, 2013–2018 (Road Map), and strategically align with other national priorities as identified in the Institute of Medicine Report on Cognitive Aging, Progress in Understanding and Opportunities for Action; The National Alzheimer’s Action Plan, and Healthy People 2020 objectives. UW serves the Coordinating Center for the HBRN.
The University and its affiliated institutions, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and Seattle Children’s Hospital, are widely regarded as leaders among the premiere biomedical research institutions in the world, with great strengths in the constellation of areas crucial for success in stem cell research and regenerative medicine.
Their strategy is to bring these interdisciplinary strengths together, and to leverage their basic research to develop therapies. ISCRM integrates diverse scientific and clinical disciplines.
The Health Promotion Research Center (HPRC) conducts community-based research that promotes the health and well-being of middle-aged and older adults, particularly those with lower incomes and in ethnic/cultural minority populations most at risk of health disparities.
The UW School of Nursing Center for Global Health Nursing works to promote nursing research and training to build capacity for appropriate and sustainable improvements in health and healthcare. It aims to do this through innovative nursing science, across differing cultural contexts, both locally and abroad.
The center harnesses the existing expertise, experience, and enthusiasm of the UW School of Nursing faculty and students in partnership with local, national and global nursing organizations and academic institutions.
The HIV Technical Cooperation Group (TCG) was formed as a pragmatic ‘think tank’ where thought leaders and practitioners exchange ideas, share best practices and catalyze innovation to build capacity in Public Health for HIV prevention and care.
Its goal is to make all TCG events highly-interactive working-group sessions that focus on pragmatic approaches to infrastructure issues in HIV public health.
The Occupational Epidemiology and Health Outcomes Program uses workers’ compensation data and its own research to improve medical care, update treatment guidelines, and provide information on treatment outcomes to injured workers, employers, and physicians.
The Pacific Northwest Agricultural Safety and Health Center conducts research and promotes best health and safety practices for Northwest producers and workers in farming, fishing and forestry.
Affiliated with the UW School of Public Health, PNASH integrates expertise from multiple disciplines, institutions and community partners. Areas of emphasis include new production technologies and the needs of under-served and vulnerable populations.
The overarching goal of all studies within the Behavioral Medicine Research Group is to improve the lives of children and adults through research designed to explore the etiology and mechanisms of adverse health conditions, and to develop interventions designed to prevent or mitigate the impact of these conditions.
PACES in Epilepsy is a consumer-driven, evidenced based self-management intervention for adults with chronic epilepsy. The prograim aims to educate participants about epilepsy and its co-morbidities in order to promote improved problem-solving, and to apply cognitive-behavior therapy principles to managing stress and sadness.
We have researched and validated the program for both face-to-face and telehealth applications, and are in the process of adapting the program for people in rural/remote areas and Veterans. We are actively seeking partnership for knowledge translation/program implementation and sustention, as well as expansion of our work to other populations (e.g., people with MS).
The mission of the Latino Center for Health is to provide leadership to promote the health and well-being of Latinos in Washington State, regionally and nationally, across the lifespan.
The Latino Center will bring about sustainable changes in health through innovative community-engaged research, and mentorship and training opportunities for students and faculty, drawing upon the multidisciplinary scholarship from the tri-campuses of the University of Washington.
The only resource of its kind in Washington State, the IPNW frees innocent prisoners using DNA and other new evidence.
IPNW was founded in 1997 to exonerate the innocent, remedy causes of wrongful conviction and offer law students an outstanding education.
The mission of the DeRouen Center, established in 2017, is to promote collaboration and inclusivity in scientific and clinical research that impacts global oral health. Through dedicated teamwork, our center promotes worldwide oral health. We are strategically targeting our efforts to four geographical areas with sites where we have been successfully working: Southeast Asia (with Thailand as our lead site), Africa (with Kenya as our lead site), South America (with Peru as the lead), and Seattle.
Thailand: For over 25 years, the School of Dentistry, University of Washington (UW), has collaborated with Khon Kaen and Thammasat Universities to conduct The Fogarty International Center Training Program in Clinical, Public Health and Behavioral Oral Health Research for Thailand. Through comprehensive workshops and Summer Institutes in Clinical Dental Research Methods, participants received education and training in biostatistics, clinical epidemiology and study design, behavioral research methods, data analysis, clinical trials, grantsmanship, research ethics, and research proposal development. A selected subset of participants completed a two-year long program requiring one year of coursework at UW (which applied towards a Ph.D. program at their home institution) implementation of a research study, Ph.D. dissertation defense, and article publication. Founded in 2002, the revolutionary program has brought Thailand to the international forefront of oral health research.
Kenya: The Universities of Washington and Nairobi have a more than 25-year partnership in maternal-child HIV research. In 2015, we established a new working group focused on improving oral health in HIV-infected and HIV-exposed non-infected children. This collaborative effort is nested within the NIH funded Kenyan Pediatric Studies (KPS) and the study team consists of specialists in molecular epidemiology, pediatrics, dentistry, integration and implementation sciences, epidemiology and neurocognitive science. We initiated our work in 2015 with parents’ assessment of oral manifestations of HIV among the KPS cohorts. In January 2016, with the support of a UW Global Innovation Award, Dr. Seminario conducted training and calibration of dental community health officers and medical providers in the diagnosis of oral manifestations of HIV in Nairobi. Currently, Dr. Seminario has been awarded the 2017 UW SunStar Preventive Dentistry Award to investigate correlations between oral inflammation with general inflammation among these children. In addition, we have expanded our collaboration to Nigeria and were awarded by the International Association for Dental Research (IADR) Regional Development Program for the development of a regional site in Africa targeting the impact of HIV on the oral health of children and adolescents.
Peru: Since 2014, we have had two supplemental NIH (from Fogarty International Center) grants that allowed the development of two 5-day workshops in clinical dental research methods. Approximately seventy junior dental faculty participated in these trainings including attendees from various geographical areas within Peru as well as from other Latin American countries (Colombia, Argentina, Chile, Venezuela and Brazil). Participants were from various specialties, including: orthodontics, pediatric dentistry, endodontics, implantology, community dentistry, special care needs, esthetics, prosthodontics, and periodontics. Workshop topics included general scientific principles in planning and carrying out clinical research projects; levels of evidence in evidence-based clinical research; study designs, their applications, and the levels of evidence they produce; principles in the design and conduct of randomized clinical trials; statistical concepts and principles in testing hypotheses and evaluating evidence from clinical studies; basic behavioral models and principles in clinical dental research; ethical issues in the conduct of research on human subjects; and grantsmanship. Currently, we are partnering with our colleagues in Landscape Architecture and in Environment Health to assess the impact of environment interventions on oral and gut microbiome in a floating community on the Amazon River, in Iquitos, Peru.
Seattle: We are partnering with the SeaMar Community Clinics to improve the quality of life of refugees coming to Seattle for resettlement. The goal of this collaboration is to increase dental utilization by children from refugee families as Medicaid fully covers any pediatric oral health need including treatment under general anesthesia and these families are Medicaid enrolled soon after they arrive to our country. Through this program, we will be researching the impact of oral health on children’s growth and quality of life.
Exploring phenomena from the molecular to the global level, MAGH uniquely integrates approaches from social, cultural, medical, and biocultural anthropology into a comprehensive framework for understanding and addressing local and global health issues. With anthropology faculty renowned for their scholarship on population and health, and links to programs across campus addressing global health, the area of emphasis provides a venue for new insights, new approaches, and new opportunities for understanding health and well-being.
The mission of training in Medical Anthropology & Global Health is to provide a new generation of scholars and future health professionals with the skills necessary to identify and operationalize methods, analytical frameworks, and campus-community partnerships that contribute to addressing health challenges around the world. This track is unique in US undergraduate education. We also offer graduate training, and the possibility of a concurrent PhD/MPH.
The Center for Ecogenetics and Environmental Health (CEEH) is dedicated to contributing to science-based changes in regulatory policy and public health or medical practice that result in a reduction in the burden of environmentally induced diseases. Through discovery of new and important genetic and environmental factors that contribute to the causes of chronic diseases, new approaches to prevention, early diagnosis and effective treatments can be developed that will substantially reduce the social burden and health care costs associated with premature disease and death from environmentally related diseases.
CHANGE collaboratively develops and promotes innovative approaches to understanding and managing the risks of global environmental change.
CHANGE conducts research and policy analysis, education and training, and technical assistance and capacity building, integrating health, environmental, and social sciences.
CHANGE focuses on health outcomes associated with the consequences of global environmental changes, such as extreme weather and climate events, water and food security, and infectious diseases.
The University of Washington Nanotoxicology Center (UW Nanotox), in concert with the National Institute of Environmental Health Centers for Nanotechnology Health Implications Research (NCNHIR) consortium, develops standardized techniques, analytical tools, and mathematical models to assess and predict the toxicity and environmental impact of engineered nanomaterials.
The University of Washington Center for Clear Air Research (UW CCAR) is focused on the cardiovascular health effects of near-roadway pollution, a complex mixture of components that come from vehicle emissions and the road surface, and vary by physical aging, atmospheric conditions, and photochemical reactions. UW CCAR is funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The Molecular Engineering & Sciences Institute brings together faculty teams from across the University of Washington campus to catalyze translational research in the Clean Tech and Biotech areas.
It is intended to serve both as an intellectual accelerator to bring fresh approaches and ideas to societal challenges and as a physical incubator where interdisciplinary teams can come together in a shared space.
The Innovative Programs Research Group (IPRG) conducts brief early interventions with youth and adults struggling with behavioral issues, but who have not yet accessed relevant services.
Its projects assess the effectiveness of innovative and accessible means to impact behavior change or reduce barriers to the delivery of effective social and mental health services.
Bill enjoys applying his clinical and technology backgrounds to address information management problems in clinical care, public health, and global health. He and his staff build information systems that are used both within academics, to understand and evaluate new approaches and methods, and outside of academics, to deliver real world value in health care.
He received his MD from the University of California, San Francisco, a Master of Health Sciences from the University of California, Berkeley, and a BSEE in Electrical Engineering from Tufts University. He completed a residency in Emergency Medicine at the University of Arizona, and the Royal Brisbane Hospital, Queensland, Australia, after which he joined the faculty in the Emergency Medicine at University of Washington. While at UW, he was awarded a F38 “mid-career” fellowship from the National Institutes of Health in Applied Medical Informatics. Currently he is a Professor in Health Informatics and Global Health, jointly appointed in UW’s Schools of Nursing, Medicine, and Public Health, and directs the UW Clinical Informatics Research Group.
The Clinical Informatics Research Group designs, develops, and operates information systems to support research to improving individual and population health.
CIRG systems securely manage health information for projects in the Clinical, Public Health, and Global Health Informatics domains.
Its collaborators are based at the University of Washington, and at health care organizations across the US and around the world.
Partners for Our Children works to improve the lives of vulnerable children and families in Washington State, especially those touched by the child welfare system. But they can’t do that alone. That’s why they work closely with partners to get the right information into the right hands – those making important decisions about child welfare practice and policy.
NWCPHP provides training, research, evaluation, and communications services to support public health organizations. It is the outreach arm of the University of Washington School of Public Health, bringing academia and practice communities together. The Center does this by offering valuable academic resources to the practice community and conveying everyday-practice perspectives to academia.
Its scope includes provides training, research, and evaluation for state, local, and tribal public health in six Northwest states—Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming.
The Health Promotion Research Center (HPRC) conducts community-based research that promotes the health and well-being of middle-aged and older adults, particularly those with lower incomes and in ethnic/cultural minority populations most at risk of health disparities.
The Healthy Brain Research Network (HBRN) is a thematic network within the CDC Prevention Research Centers Program that brings together interdisciplinary expertise from six leading academic institutions across the U.S. and draws upon the collaborative strengths of established academic-community partnerships. HBRN efforts are informed by the work of The Healthy Brain Initiative: The Public Health Road Map for State and National Partnerships, 2013–2018 (Road Map), and strategically align with other national priorities as identified in the Institute of Medicine Report on Cognitive Aging, Progress in Understanding and Opportunities for Action; The National Alzheimer’s Action Plan, and Healthy People 2020 objectives. UW serves the Coordinating Center for the HBRN.
AIMS (Advancing Integrated Mental Health Solutions) Center faculty and staff at the University of Washington have worked for over 20 years to develop, test and implement an approach called Collaborative Care to treat the large numbers of people suffering unnecessarily from mental illness. Collaborative Care is an integrated care model that brings high quality mental health care to primary care clinics and other familiar settings. Its strength lies in treating persistent mental health conditions like depression and anxiety that require systematic follow-up for patients to get better.
I work at the intersection of autism research, technology development, and big-data approaches.
Our laboratory, the Seattle Children’s Innovative Technologies Laboratory, focuses on a combination of biomarker development, assistive technologies, and novel technology-based therapeutics.
Methods of primary interest include eye tracking, functional near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), mobile applications, and social robotics.
Projects of note include identification and refinement of prognostic markers associated with autism (eye tracking, NIRS, EEG), development of advanced multimedia screening technologies for developmental issues, and application of novel devices (augmented reality, virtual reality, social robotics) for understanding mechanism and behavioral change.
Washington Medical-Legal Partnership (MLP) helps people in vulnerable populations understand and secure their legal rights regarding safe housing, adequate schooling, medical needs and more. It partners with lawyers, doctors, social workers, and other medical staff to remove barriers to good health.
Based at the University of Washington Bothell, the Center for Education Data and Research (CEDR) will focus on studying the complex relationships between K-12 education policies and practices, social services geared toward students, and student outcomes.
While it will not focus exclusively on Washington State, CEDR will concentrate its efforts on helping build the capacity across Washington State to ask the right questions, frame issues and policy options, and engage in research and data analyses that make good use of the state’s expanding databases.
Sarah Elwood and Victoria Lawson are collaborating on relational poverty research and teaching. Social science research on impoverishment, equity and well-being recognizes that questions of health can never be separated from questions about social, political and economic context. Our work understands poverty as more than just an economic marker and population as more than demographic categories. Instead, our work and members of the Relational Poverty Network analyze poverty as constituted by interlocking processes including socio-economic processes around the globe, cultural politics of representation, processes of racialization, gender, nationality and ability and processes of governing, norming – of making ‘common sense’.
Our own recent research focuses on poverty politics, as crucial to understanding population equity and questions of well-being/health. Poverty politics entail projects of government that identify problems, justify interventions, and inaugurate solutions that stabilize dominant forms of economic and political power AND politics that refuse existing orders of social (de)valuation (that rely on the categorization, exclusion, repression and criminalization of difference) through practices of illiberal embodiment and disidentification which rehumanize people outside of racial capitalist orders. We also study alliances across difference as potential sites for advancing unprecedented and creative challenges to impoverishment might emerge from solidarities across race, class, gender, ability, sexuality, and other axes of difference. A third strand of our work addresses epistemologies and methodologies of studying poverty. Our work begins from an epistemology of poverty that integrates multiple causal processes as they interrelate differentially across time and space. Our approach builds bridges between policymakers, researchers, and communities to build innovative concepts for poverty research.
The University and its affiliated institutions, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and Seattle Children’s Hospital, are widely regarded as leaders among the premiere biomedical research institutions in the world, with great strengths in the constellation of areas crucial for success in stem cell research and regenerative medicine.
Their strategy is to bring these interdisciplinary strengths together, and to leverage their basic research to develop therapies. ISCRM integrates diverse scientific and clinical disciplines.
The Center for Cardiovascular Biology is dedicated to discovering the molecular basis of cardiovascular disease, harnessing this information to develop new therapies, and training the next generation of cardiovascular physicians and scientists.
The overarching mission of the School Mental Health Assessment, Research, and Training (SMART) Center is to promote quality improvement of school-based mental/behavioral health services, thereby preventing or ameliorating mental health problems more effectively and promoting the social-emotional and academic development and success of youth across school, home, and community contexts.
Dr. Beverly Green is a family physician and associate investigator at Group Health and Group Health Research Institute. Her areas of interest include population based screening within organized health care and safety net settings, improving the care of chronic conditions such as hypertension, and leveraging technology to optimize the reach and effectiveness of evidence-based health care. She is also a Clinical Associate Professor in the University of Washington Medical School Department of Family Medicine.
Prof Cox is one of the lead investigators in an International Consortium put together with the aim of identifying the genetic basis of cleft lip/palate. Patients, and particularly families with multiple affected individuals, have been collected from the US, Australia, Netherlands, Colombia and the Philippines.
The project, currently supported by federal funding from Australia, has been conducting exome and whole-genome sequencing. New candidate genes are being assessed in Prof Cox’s laboratory through functional studies involving a combination of in vitro assays and mouse models.
Additional research in the Cox lab is focused on the molecular and developmental mechanisms causing facial clefts, the role of diet in mitigating the severity of presentation, and the role of ‘cleft’ genes in other dental phenotypes commonly seen in patients. We are interested in partnering with other clinicians and basic researchers with interests in clinical outcomes in the management of individuals with clefts or other craniofacial malformations, genetic testing, or basic epithelial biology.
Dr. McKinney received her doctorate in epidemiology from the University of Washington in 2006. Her research interests are focused on craniofacial, oral, and nutritional health in young children. She is based in the Division of Craniofacial Medicine in the Department of Pediatrics at the UW School of Medicine.
Dr. McKinney currently studies the unique intersection of oral clefts, maternal breast milk expression, infant feeding and global health. She spearheaded the development of the NIFTY cup – an infant feeding cup for infants with breastfeeding difficulties such as infants with oral clefts and preterm infants in low resource settings – with a team of multidisciplinary experts from Seattle Childrens, PATH, the University of Washington and Laerdal Global Health. Her global research collaborations involve partners in Thailand, India and Ghana.
The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) is an independent global health research center at the University of Washington that provides rigorous and comparable measurement of the world’s most important health problems and evaluates the strategies used to address them.
IHME makes this information freely available so that policymakers have the evidence they need to make informed decisions about how to allocate resources to best improve population health.
Assistant Professor based at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, focusing on a variety of population health topics, including Neglected Tropical Diseases, Vector-borne, Zoonotoc and potentially pandemic pathogens