CHEAR For Kids’ Health
Faculty Investigators
Sarah J. Clark, M.P.H. (saclark@umich.edu)
Sarah J. Clark, M.P.H., is currently Associate Director for Research in the Division of General Pediatrics and Research Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan Medical Center. Ms. Clark has more than ten years of experience in both quantitative and qualitative pediatric health services research studies. Trained in health behavior/health education at the University of North Carolina, Ms. Clark contributes expertise in instrument design, behavior change theory, and qualitative research methods. Her previous work has included studies of the attitudes and practices of immunization providers, evaluation of Medicaid policies and programs, and evaluation of changes in health care delivery.
As Associate Director for Research, Ms. Clark is responsible for the oversight of funded projects conducted within the Division. She supervises research support staff, and works closely with fellows and faculty on projects and proposals. Ms. Clark is a member of the Medical Center's Institutional Review Board (IRBMED).
Matthew M. Davis, M.D., M.A.P.P.(mattdav@umich.edu)
Matthew M. Davis, M.D., M.A.P.P., is Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan Health System and Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan. Dr. Davis earned his M.D. cum laude from Harvard Medical School. He was then one of the first two residents to complete the combined training program in internal medicine and pediatrics at the Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Children's Hospital in Boston. As a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar and an Irving Harris Fellow in Child Policy at the University of Chicago, Dr. Davis formalized his research interests in health services and health policy affecting children and their families, on which he has continued to focus at the University of Michigan.
Dr. Davis is the Director of the C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health. To find out more about the Poll and download reports and podcasts, go to National Poll on Children's Health Web site. Dr. Davis's research interests also include the dynamic of health behaviors within family; health policy; access to care; adolescent risk behaviors; and immunizations. His current work focuses on 3 major areas of child and family health policy: vaccination policy issues, including physicians' responses to vaccine recommendations and the influence of rising vaccine costs on the performance of vaccination efforts in the public and private sectors; child and family health insurance issues, with an emphasis on employer decision-making regarding private health plans; and health and economic implications of obesity throughout the life span. He continues this work in combination with his roles as a research mentor for fellows and residents, a med-peds clinician, and an outpatient clinical preceptor.
Amanda F. Dempsey, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H.(adempsey@umich.edu)
Amanda F. Dempsey, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., is an Assistant Professor in the Division of General Pediatrics at the University of Michigan Health System. Her research focuses on the development of policies and implementation strategies for adolescent immunization, and on understanding the biologic and clinical effects of these interventions.
Dr. Dempsey completed her undergraduate education at the University of Rochester, where she studied cell biology. She then participated in the Medical Scientist Training Program at Vanderbilt University, where she received her M.D. and Ph.D. degrees. Dr Dempsey moved to Seattle for her residency training in Pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center, and stayed on as a fellow in the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program at the University of Washington. She received her MPH degree in Health Services from the University of Washington School of Public Health.
Amanda Dempsey's Profile and CV
Kevin J. Dombkowski, Dr.P.H., M.S. (kjd@umich.edu)
Kevin J. Dombkowski, Dr.P.H., M.S., is Research Assistant Professor with the Child Health Evaluation and Research (CHEAR) unit in the Division of General Pediatrics at the University of Michigan. Dr. Dombkowski's research is focused on public health service issues which affect children enrolled in Michigan's Medicaid program, such as access to adequate primary care services. His research includes studies of emergency department utilization for primary care services, factors influencing age-appropriate childhood vaccination, as well as services provided to chronically ill children.
Dr. Dombkowski is active in collaborations with the Michigan Department of Community Health on several statewide initiatives aimed at improving health care quality to persons with asthma and is currently a member of the Asthma Surveillance and the Asthma Communication Network committees. He is also an active member of the Alliance for Immunizations in Michigan, the statewide coalition that fosters the dissemination of evidence-based information and access to childhood immunizations throughout the state.
In addition to his research interests, Dr. Dombkowski has extensive experience with health care information systems, especially immunization registries and other public health data management systems. Prior to joining the University of Michigan, he served as a health care information systems consultant to health care systems and public health agencies throughout Michigan and the United States.
Kevin Dombkowski's Profile and CV
Gary L. Freed, M.D., M.P.H. (gfreed@umich.edu)
Gary L. Freed, M.D., M.P.H., is The Percy and Mary Murphy Professor of Pediatrics and Child Health Delivery, Director of the Division of General Pediatrics in the School of Medicine and Professor of Health Management and Policy in the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan. He is also the Director of the Children's Health Evaluation and Research (CHEAR) Unit at the University of Michigan. Dr. Freed has over 15 years of experience in children's health services research and has been the principal investigator on a number of state-, federal-, and foundation-funded grants. He has published extensively on physician behavior and interspecialty variation in the provision of preventive services to children, child health policy, immunization policy, vaccine financing and the medical workforce. Dr. Freed serves on the National Vaccine Advisory Committee and is the Vice-President of the Society for Pediatric Research.
James G. Gurney, Ph.D. (jamegurn@umich.edu)
James G. Gurney, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in Pediatrics and the Director of the CTSA Pediatric Research Program for the Michigan Institute of Clinical and Health Research. Dr. Gurney, an epidemiologist, conducts clinical research on adverse medical and psychosocial outcomes in survivors of childhood cancer. He received the 2001 American Brain Tumor Association Award for Excellence in Epidemiology, and in 2005 was one of the first recipients of the Clinical Sciences Scholar Award from the University of Michigan Medical School. Dr. Gurney’s research has been funded by the National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society, and the Cancer Research Foundation’s Hope Street Kids. Dr. Gurney is an Associate Editor for the Annals of Epidemiology and a member of several scientific advisory boards, including the National Brain Tumor Foundation, the Central Brain Tumor Registry of the United States, and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. He is a frequent ad hoc scientific reviewer for the National Cancer Institute.
Joyce M. Lee, M.D., M.P.H. (joyclee@umich.edu)
Joyce M. Lee, M.D., M.P.H., is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Pediatric Endocrinology at the University of Michigan with a joint appointment in the Child Health Evaluation and Research (CHEAR) unit. She attended Brown University for her undergraduate education and the University of Pennsylvania for her medical degree, where she was elected to the Alpha Omega Alpha Honors Society. She completed her internship and residency in General Pediatrics at Children’s Hospital, Boston, and her fellowship in Pediatric Endocrinology and Pediatric Health Services Research at the University of Michigan. She received her Master in Public Health from the Department of Health Management and Policy at the University of Michigan.
Dr. Lee’s research focuses on the epidemiology of diabetes (type 1 and type 2) and obesity in children, health outcomes and quality of life for children with diabetes, and the link between childhood obesity and its long-term endocrine consequences, including pubertal maturation and development of diabetes over the life course. Dr. Lee is a co-investigator for cost-effectiveness for the national multi-center randomized controlled trial to evaluate the use of real-time continuous glucose monitoring (RT-CGM) systems for improving health outcomes and quality of life for children with type 1 diabetes, funded by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) Artificial Pancreas Program.
Because of her specialized training in Pediatric Endocrinology and Pediatric Health Services Research, Dr. Lee was appointed to the editorial board of the journal Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine in March 2007. Dr. Lee’s scientific research has been featured in that national and international news including the CBS News with Katie Couric, ABC World News Tonight with Charles Gibson, National Public Radio, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, CNN, U.S. News and World Report, Newsweek, the BBC, and the Guardian.
Kathryn Moseley, M.D. (kmosele@umich.edu)
Kathryn Moseley, M.D., is a Lecturer in the Division of General Pediatrics at the University of Michigan Health System. Dr. Moseley was born and raised in the city of Detroit. After graduating cum laude from Harvard University in History of Science, she went on to receive her medical degree from the University of Michigan Medical School. Experiences during a pediatric residency at Henry Ford Hospital and a fellowship in neonatology at Children's Hospital of Michigan, both in Detroit, sparked Dr. Moseley's interest in bioethics. Board-certified in pediatrics and neonatology, she joined the faculty of St. Louis University Medical School as Assistant Professor of pediatrics and enrolled in a master's degree program in moral theology at the Aquinas Institute of Theology, a Roman Catholic seminary. Later, she became a faculty member of the Center for Health Care Ethics at St. Louis University.
Dr. Moseley left St. Louis to become the Director of Neonatology at Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston, Maine. Midwesterner at heart, she returned to Detroit a few years later to be the Director of Biomedical Ethics for the Henry Ford Health System where she oversaw an active ethics consultation service and instructed attending staff, residents, medical students and allied health professionals in bioethics. She turned her interest to the ethical issues raised in medical care. During this time, she completed a fellowship in clinical medical ethics at the University of Chicago.
Dr. Moseley joined the University of Michigan in 2002 to conduct research about the racial differences in health care decision-making she discovered doing clinical ethics consultations and how those decisions are affected by culture and trust. Her recent work has focused on measuring trust in parents of pediatric outpatients.
Kathryn Moseley's Profile and CV
Fola Odetola, M.D., M.P.H. (fodetola@umich.edu)
Fola Odetola, M.D., M.P.H. is a recent graduate of the Health Services Research Fellowship within the Division of General Pediatrics. He is a Lecturer in the Division of General Pediatrics as well as a Clinical Instructor in the Division of Critical Care Medicine. His research interests focus on the optimization of health care delivery to critically ill and injured children through process evaluation and outcomes assessment; and health technology assessment within the pediatric critical care unit.
Dr. Odetola earned his medical degree from the College of Health-Sciences, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria, MB.CHB and his MPH from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Odetola did his pediatric residency at the Children’s Hospital of New Jersey at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center, as well as a Pediatric Critical Care Fellowship at the University of Michigan and a Robert Wood Johnson Fellowship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
David E. Sandberg, Ph.D. (dsandber@umich.edu)
David E. Sandberg, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor with the Child Health Evaluation and Research (CHEAR) unit in the Division of General Pediatrics, and the Director of Division of Child Behavioral Health at the University of Michigan Health System. Dr. Sandberg completed both his undergraduate and graduate degrees at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, and his PhD at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada.
Dr. Sandberg’s clinical interest include psychoeducational and mental health services to children and adolescents with endocrine disorders and their families, in particular, conditions affecting growth and disorders of sex development (i.e., intersex conditions). His specialties are Pediatric Psychology and Developmental Psychoendocrinology.
Dr. Sandberg’s research activities include the study of psychosocial aspects of short stature and the psychosocial care of individuals born with disorders of sex development (DSD) and families. He recently served as co-investigator of a National Institute of Child Health and Human Development sponsored interdisciplinary research network concerned with biological and socialization factors in sexual differentiation. He is also developing a psychoeducational treatment manual for clinicians caring for newborns with congenital adrenal hyperplasia identified by newborn screen; and designing health-related quality of life measures for individuals with DSD and their families.
Dr. Sandberg is also certified in Respecialization in Clinical Psychology.
David Sandberg's Profile and CV
Beth A. Tarini, M.D., M.S. (btarini@umich.edu)
Beth A. Tarini, M.D., M.S. is an Assistant Professor in the Division of General Pediatrics at the University of Michigan Health System. Her research focuses on optimizing the use of diagnostic testing and technology, including genetic testing, in pediatrics. She is particularly interested in population-based screening programs, such as newborn screening. Other research interests include parental involvement in medical decision-making and communication about testing between health care providers and parents.
Dr. Tarini completed her undergraduate degree in biology at Harvard University and her medical degree at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She moved to Seattle for her pediatric residency training at the University of Washington and stayed on there as a fellow in the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program. She also received her MS degree in Health Services from the University of Washington School of Public Health.
Susan Woolford, M.D., M.P.H. (swoolfor@umich.edu)
Susan Woolford, M.D., M.P.H. is an Assistant Professor with the Child Health Evaluation and Research (CHEAR) unit in the Division of General Pediatrics at the University of Michigan. Her research interests focus on Childhood Obesity; Physician Patient Communication Regarding Health Behavior Changes, and Health Services Research. Her clinical interests are Obesity Prevention and Treatment, with a specialty in Pediatrics.
Dr. Woolford earned her medical degree at Michigan State University and her MPH from the University of Michigan. She completed her residency at Michigan State University, along with a Fellowship in Health Services Research at the University of Michigan. Dr. Woolford is a Diplomat of the American Board of Pediatrics.
Susan Woolford's Profile and CV
Esther Y. Yoon, M.D., M.P.H. (est@umich.edu)
Esther Y. Yoon, M.D., M.P.H., is an Assistant Professor in the Division of General Pediatrics at the University of Michigan Health System. Her research interests focus on best-informed pediatric prescribing practice through evaluation of factors influencing prescribing practice, dissemination of medication information to providers, and physician decision-making.
Dr. Yoon completed her undergraduate education at the University of Michigan where she studied Biology and Anthropology-Zoology. She earned her medical degree from Wayne State University and completed her pediatric residency training at Children’s Hospital of Michigan. Dr. Yoon then returned to the University of Michigan as a fellow in Pediatric Health Services Research in the Division of General Pediatrics and received her M.P.H. degree in Epidemiology from the University of Michigan School of Public Health.