Northwest Center for Public Health Practice
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 UW Psychiatry Division of Population Health is dedicated to improving the health of the public by developing, testing, evaluating, and implementing effective behavioral health interventions across the entire spectrum of health care delivery.
We are committed to finding new and innovative approaches to providing effective behavioral health care to defined populations. Our strength lies in knowledge transfer and practice-based learning with implementation work driving new research questions and research results driving new implementation methodology. Our researchers conduct both qualitative and quantitative research and use large data sets to establish benchmarks for treatment outcomes and to study variation across patients, providers, practice and policy.
The Division of Population Health focuses on four primary challenges facing mental health care:
Improving Access
Although there are numerous effective treatments for psychiatric disorders, these treatments often do not reach the patients who need them. We develop and test innovations that increase the healthcare system’s capacity to deliver effective treatments and increase patient’s access to and engagement in effective treatments. Scientific Aims:
- Shift treatment tasks to lower levels of care and encourage patient
self-management to increase capacity. - Use technology to substitute virtual care encounters for face-to-face visits to increase access.
- Use virtual care technologies to augment face-to-face visits by facilitating between-visit patient-provider communications and to better determine when face-to-face visits are needed in order to increase both access and capacity.
- “Flip the clinic” and deliver care in non-traditional settings, including the home, to increase access.
Targeting Treatment
For individuals with psychiatric disorders who engage in treatment, it often takes too long to find the right treatment (or combination of treatments) that is most effective. We identify and test methods for predicting which treatment or treatments will be most effective for a particular patient, as well as methods for more quickly detecting when treatment is ineffective. Scientific Aims:
- Develop and test feasible methods for measurement-based care to facilitate identifying treatment non-response.
- Test approaches to promoting shared decision making to encourage the delivery of treatments that address patients’ treatment goals.
- Identify important treatment moderators to help patients and providers choose the right treatment.
- Determine how pharmacogenetics can inform treatment decision making to facilitate precision medicine.
Closing the Mortality Gap
Individuals living with psychiatric disorders endure a greater burden of illness over their lifetimes and experience higher mortality rates. For individuals living with a psychiatric disorder, we develop clinical and public health interventions that promote healthy lifestyles, higher quality of care for physical health disorders and better management of side effects of psychotropic medications. Scientific Aims:
- Develop and test smoking cessation, opioid tapering, and exercise programs for patients with psychiatric disorders.
- Develop and test models of integrating of physical health care into specialty mental health settings.
- Develop and test feasible methods to monitor metabolic side effects of psychotropic medications.
- Develop and test clinical and public health interventions to prevent suicide.
Bridging the Research-Practice Chasm
It takes too long for newly developed evidence-based treatments to be adopted by providers and incorporated into routine care. To bridge the chasm between research and practice, we identify and test implementation strategies that effectively promote the adoption of new evidence-based practices. Scientific Aims:
- Identify variations in the quality of care and deployment of evidence based practices in routine care.
- Identify valid quality metrics and pay-for-performance systems.
- Develop and test clinical decision support systems that encourage evidence based care.
- Test alternative training and facilitation strategies to promote implementation.
- Adapt existing evidence based practices for different populations and clinic settings.
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.
The CSNE’s mission is to develop innovative ways to connect a deep computational understanding of how the brain adapts and processes information with the design of implantable devices that interact seamlessly with the nervous system.
CSNE aspires to help people with disabilities and develop novel modes of human-computer interaction by connecting brains with technology.
They study signals from the brain and use that information to stimulate a part of the brain or spinal cord for neurorehabilitation, including the use of an assistive device.
The HEALTH-E initiative is an interdisciplinary research group at the University of Washington, Seattle examining technology and aging. We are interested in designing technology tools to promote independent aging.
Our core works on social, behavioral and public health related research supporting HIV prevention and care.
The specific aims of the Sociobehavioral and Prevention Research Core are to support:
HIV Prevention Research, including technical assistance to CFAR investigators, organizing forums for interdisciplinary research community development, expanding our substantive expertise to include addictions, substance use, and mental health research.
Local Community Outreach, including working with CFAR’s Community Action Board to pursue community-based research priorities and translational opportunities, taking advantage of our institutional ties to Seattle & King County Public Health to stimulate collaborative research projects and evidence-based policy development.
International Community Outreach, including working with the International Core to identify collaborative research and translational opportunities with the new University of Nairobi Center for HIV Prevention and Research (UNCHIVPR) on translational research for HIV prevention. Integrating social, behavioral, and clinical science is increasingly necessary for progress in controlling HIV, and the Sociobehavioral and Prevention Research Core works to assure this synergy by providing support to behavioral, clinical, and social scientists in their research.
The Social Development Research Group (SDRG) seeks to investigate and promote healthy behaviors and positive social development in youth and adults.
SDRG is a recognized leader in the field of prevention research. Its efforts to understand how risk and protective factors influence development have resulted in hundreds of articles in peer-reviewed journals and led to the development of tested and effective interventions.
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.
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.
Since 1996, CAYAC has been training law students to advocate for children and youth in a variety of state-involved contexts.
Today, CAYAC students represent children and youth in the child welfare and immigration systems. It also represents youth who are homeless and work to advocate for the civil legal needs of queer youth.
The Center for Law, Science and Global Health was established in 1994. It provides the leadership, academic courses, academic advising, career counseling, practicums, externships and internships, for all of the University of Washington School of Law’s Health Law programs.
Health Law encompasses a broad range of topics, ranging from government regulation of health law to health care business transactions, telemedicine, finance and reimbursement, to the ethical controversies presented in various areas of medicine.
The mission of the Women’s Center is to create a more inclusive and compassionate society by promoting gender equity and social justice through educational programs and services that allows all participants to succeed in life.
The Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences was founded in 1999 with the triple mission of galvanizing collaborative research between social scientists and statisticians, developing a menu of new graduate courses for social science students, and enhancing undergraduate statistics training for the social sciences.
Initiated with funding from the University Initiatives Fund, CSSS was the first center in the nation devoted to the interface of statistics and the social sciences.
The Native American Law Center promotes the development of Indian law, and encourages Native Americans, and others with an interest in Indian law, to attend law school.
It also acts as a resource to Indian tribes, other governments and individuals in the Pacific Northwest, Alaska and across the country.
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.
The purpose of this research group is to examine social and racial inequalities that results in health disparities. This UW Bothell-based group examines the social context, and social predictors of poor health across multiple chronic health indicators across a diverse group of foreign born and native born respondents.
A key focus of this group is to examine the relationship between perceived and actual racial/ethnic discrimination in health.
The Center for Communication, Difference, and Equity is committed to research and innovation by, with, and for minoritized and marginalized people. It is dedicated to leadership development, and foundationally community-centered in the desire to build a more equitable world in which our words, imagery, and institutions are infused with understanding, respect, and justice.
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.
Rapid advances in technology are transforming nearly every field from “data-poor” to “data-rich.” The ability to extract knowledge from this abundance of data is the cornerstone of 21st century discovery.
The mission of the University of Washington eScience Institute is to engage researchers across disciplines in developing and applying advanced computational methods and tools to real world problems in data-intensive discovery.
The Rural/Underserved Opportunities Program (RUOP) is a four-week, elective immersion experience in community medicine for students between their first and second years of medical school. During their four-week rotation, students live in rural or urban underserved communities throughout Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho (WWAMI). They work side-by-side with local physicians providing health care to underserved populations.
Administered by the UW Department of Family Medicine, RUOP is a collaborative effort of the UW School of Medicine, WWAMI campuses and the Area Health Education Centers. It is also supported by the Washington and Idaho Academies of Family Physicians. For more information, contact the RUOP Administrative Offices.
Assessment of health and quality of life of vulnerable populations including people with disabilities. Tracking of US national health goals with years of healthy life indicator.
The Relational Poverty Network convenes a community of scholars, teachers, policy makers and activists, working within and beyond academia, to develop conceptual frameworks, research methodologies, and pedagogies for the study of relational poverty.
Launched at a historical moment of dramatic income inequality and enforced austerity in the global North, the RPN thinks across geographical boundaries to foster a transnational and comparative approach to poverty research.
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.
Forefront is a place where expertise and partnership come together with a passion to save lives.
Forefront advances innovative approaches to suicide prevention through policy change, professional training, campus- and school-based interventions, media outreach, and support for persons affected by suicide.
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.
Global Center for Integrated Health of Women, Adolescents and Children was created to break down the traditional silos between departments and capitalize on the benefits created when multiple disciplines approach a topic with the same end goal in mind. Maternal health expertise from the Department of Obstetrics/Gynecology, neonatal and child health expertise from the Department of Pediatrics, and vast experience working in infectious disease, health evaluation, education, clinical research, and service delivery within the Department of Global Health all combine to create a methodology that views women, children, and adolescents not as three independent populations but as interconnected.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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 Center works to understand the mechanisms that define children’s susceptibility to pesticides and air pollution. Identifying the implications of this susceptibility for developmental and learning trajectories, and partnering with communities to translate the Center’s findings into risk communication, risk management and public health prevention strategies.
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.
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 UW Superfund Research Program is comprised of an interdisciplinary team of faculty and graduate students from University of Washington departments of: Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, Epidemiology, Genome Sciences, Environmental Chemistry, Civil & Environmental Engineering and Pharmacology.
UW SRP investigators focus on neurotoxic metals cadmium, manganese and arsenic. These metals commonly occur at waterways and hazardous waste sites, negatively impacting human health and ecosystem functions
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.
The CSNE’s mission is to develop innovative ways to connect a deep computational understanding of how the brain adapts and processes information with the design of implantable devices that interact seamlessly with the nervous system.
CSNE aspires to help people with disabilities and develop novel modes of human-computer interaction by connecting brains with technology.
They study signals from the brain and use that information to stimulate a part of the brain or spinal cord for neurorehabilitation, including the use of an assistive device.
Since 1996, CAYAC has been training law students to advocate for children and youth in a variety of state-involved contexts.
Today, CAYAC students represent children and youth in the child welfare and immigration systems. It also represents youth who are homeless and work to advocate for the civil legal needs of queer youth.
The Race and Justice Clinic works to disrupt the systemic over-representation of youth of color in school discipline and the juvenile justice system by empowering youth and their support networks through community education and direct representation.
The Barer Institute was established in 2010 by Stan and Alta Barer to provide specialized legal education focused on the multidisciplinary role of law in promoting health, education, and economic development.
The goal of the Institute is to utilize lawyers as leaders in providing advice and solutions to health, education, and economic development issues in lower and middle income developing countries.
The Center for Law, Science and Global Health was established in 1994. It provides the leadership, academic courses, academic advising, career counseling, practicums, externships and internships, for all of the University of Washington School of Law’s Health Law programs.
Health Law encompasses a broad range of topics, ranging from government regulation of health law to health care business transactions, telemedicine, finance and reimbursement, to the ethical controversies presented in various areas of medicine.
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 Native American Law Center promotes the development of Indian law, and encourages Native Americans, and others with an interest in Indian law, to attend law school.
It also acts as a resource to Indian tribes, other governments and individuals in the Pacific Northwest, Alaska and across the country.
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.
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 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 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.
Bringing faculty, staff, and students together with community to address the most challenging urban issues today and in the future. We work across disciplines, professions, and expertise to catalyze improvements in human and environmental health in cities and urban landscapes around the globe.
The mission of the Women’s Center is to create a more inclusive and compassionate society by promoting gender equity and social justice through educational programs and services that allows all participants to succeed in life.