Research
Research at the O'Donnell School of Public Health
Research at the O’Donnell School of Public Health (OSPH) is essential to achieving our mission of creating excellence for impact. We discover and disseminate new methodologies and scientific knowledge to inform health care delivery and enhance community health.
Our Goals
- Promote science and evidence-based decision making
- Monitor and improve health at all levels
- Foster innovation
- Inform and equip a diverse and inclusive public health workforce
Through our affiliations with communities and large clinical teaching hospitals and health systems, we enable groundbreaking health care delivery research and implementation science.
Our faculty expertise spans diverse fields including implementation science, community health, behavioral sciences, biostatistics, bioinformatics, health economics, epidemiology, and geospatial information science.
Our Research Programs
Assuring Implementation and Improvement Science
With congressional-directed funding through the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), this program facilitates discovery in health services and other research across our affiliated health systems.
Director: George L. Jackson, M.H.A., Ph.D.
Data Sciences for Precision Health
This open research platform promotes development and applications of innovative data science and AI methods for precision health.
Directors: Guanghua (Andy) Xiao, Ph.D., and Yang Xie, Ph.D.
Pediatric Population Health Sciences
Beginning in 2024, this program, which is planned as a partnership of UTSW, the OSPH, and the UTSW/Children’s Health Joint Pediatric Enterprise, will address the overarching needs of children and adolescents in our catchment and beyond.
Additional Public Health Research Focus Areas at UTSW
Vaccinology and Public Health
A cornerstone of public health policy, immunization is highly cost-effective when used to protect the public’s health. UTSW vaccinology efforts focus on achieving a better understanding of protective immunity and developing new vaccines for hard-to-target pathogens, with the goal of controlling disease outbreaks in populations and countries globally.
Director: Saad B. Omer, M.B.B.S., M.P.H., Ph.D.
Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Research Program in Population Science and Cancer Control
This program includes faculty from UTSW’s OSPH and School of Medicine who seek to identify and evaluate biomarkers to assess cancer risk, detect it early, and predict progression; identify multilevel factors associated with cancer risks and outcomes; and develop and test interventions to improve implementation of evidence-based cancer prevention and control services.
Director: Celette Sugg Skinner, Ph.D.
Learn more