Bernadette Boden-Albala

Biography

Dr. Boden-Albala is a social epidemiologist whose work has involved describing and intervening on stroke disparities with emphasis on social support and social networks and has extensive experience in the description of and intervention research associated with disparities especially among white, black and Hispanic and Alaskan Native populations in both urban and rural communities.  She was formerly Director of the Community Engagement Resource of the Columbia University CTSA where part of her work focused on the role of Health Literacy in cardiovascular disease including the development of “accessible” materials and techniques to enhance decision making for lifestyle behaviors.  She joined Mount Sinai Medical Center School of Medicine in early 2011 as Chief, Division of Social Epidemiology in the Department of Health Evidence and Policy.  In this capacity, she is working with faculty to train a new cohort of disparities researchers.  She has extensive experience investigating many well-known social determinants of health, including community, household, network and individual data, (2) testing measures including medical skepticism, entitlement expectations, perceived racism that will explore previously untested social determinants of cerebrovascular  disease, (3) collecting extensive biological measures of neuroendocrine, metabolic, cardiovascular and immune parameters to investigate the biological manifestation of social conditions as disease states, (4) following a large sample of multi-ethnic stroke populations longitudinally and (5) using a community engaged philosophy to disseminate results and collect information. She is currently Principle Investigator (PI) of the National Initiative for Minority Involvement in Neurological Clinical Trials which is investigating the multi-level barriers to minority recruitment including lay barriers, attitudes and perception of researchers and institutional obstacles. She is also PI on the FURRThER Study, a complex behavioral trial; PI on the NINDS funded SWIFT stroke preparedness Study; PI on DESERVE an emergency room risk reduction intervention; PI on ASPIRE, a stroke preparedness intervention in Washington DC; multiple PI on the Alaska Native Stroke Registry, and is the director of the 12,000 community resident WICER survey.