Isabel Roth, DrPH, MS

Assistant Professor

My research focuses on the identification of effective implementation strategies to promote access to evidence-based complementary and integrative health practices among diverse populations with chronic conditions. My academic training and research experience have provided me with excellent inter-disciplinary training in implementation science, public health, and behavioral sciences, with a broad understanding of integrative health professions and practices. As a graduate research assistant and later as a postdoctoral research fellow, I gained hands-on experience with program evaluation, implementation science design and execution, recruitment of diverse, vulnerable, and hard-to-reach populations, and engaging a wide range of clinical and community partners. My background in physiology and neuroscience has provided a firm mechanistic understanding of behavioral interventions, and an ability to communicate with clinicians and basic science researchers.

Currently, I lead a Community Engagement supplement to a multi-site randomized clinical trial of mindfulness for chronic low back pain as UNC Site-PI (now in a no-cost extension year), in which we are engaging a Community Advisory Board and conducting interviews with partners to improve recruitment and retention during the trial and inform future implementation efforts. I am also PI of a K01 Career Development Award in which I am extending pilot work on implementing Integrative Medical Group Visits for patients with chronic pain, to scale-up the model in Federally-Qualified Health Centers in rural and urban settings in North Carolina. My vision is to test implementation strategies identified through this formative work in a fully powered trial, and ultimately to expand access to integrative medicine in underserved communities.