Population Health Branch

Our mission is to improve population health and health equity by leveraging population health data as well as researcher, clinician, and community knowledge. We aim to deepen and broaden engagement with community stakeholders at every step of the research process, enhance the research environment to support transdisciplinary science, and support the integration of special populations into research through collaborative and community-engaged programs.

Offices & Centers

National Center for Deaf Health Research 

As a CDC-funded Prevention Research Center, the National Center for Deaf Health Research is the only research center in the world that works with Deaf sign language users and people with hearing loss to promote health and prevent disease using community-based participatory research.

Office of Health Equity Research 

The UR CTSI partners with the Office of Health Equity Research, which aims to transform health and achieve equity through research. Part of URMC's Equity and Anti-Racism Action Plan, the Office supports innovative health equity research to foster a deeper understanding of the root causes of health inequitites and translation of findings into more equitable care.

Research Spotlight

Fiscella and Yousefi Nooraie Envision a Community-Focused Complementary Pathway for Translational Research

Faced with numerous challenges to population health, the biomedical translational research field would benefit from a novel, complementary pathway for translational research that centers community priorities, argues Kevin Fiscella, MD, MPH, and Reza Yousefi Nooraie, MSc, PhD, in a paper published in the Journal of Clinical and Translational Science. Fiscella and Yousefi Nooraie envision a second complementary translational research pathway that works in tandem with the current biomedical-based pathway.

Community Engagement

The UR CTSI is dedicated to engaging the community at all stages of research to identify needs, establish research partnerships, and develop strategies to meet those needs. We train researchers and community members to work together and provide funding to support and advance these partnerships. Learn about our community engagement efforts. 

Equity-Focused Dissemination and Implementation

The rapidly growing field of dissemination and implementation (D&I) science examines the process by which scientific evidence is implemented in clinical settings and communities. Our team works with researchers to help design and evaluate evidence-based interventions with a focus on addressing health equity. Learn more.

Team Science

At the UR CTSI, we believe that a multidisciplinary team science approach is essential to promote innovation and improve efficiency of research collaborations and training. Visit our Team Science page for useful links to resources and tools to help researchers engage in team science.

Branch Leadership

John Cullen, Ph.D.

John Cullen is the strategic director for the Population Health Branch, director of Diversity and Inclusion, and function leader for Community Engagement and Promoting Diverse Representation in Research for the UR CTSI.
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Karen Vitale, M.S.Ed

Karen Vitale is the operations director of the Population Health Branch, program manager of the UNYTE Translational Network, and network coordinator for the Greater Rochester Practice-Based Research Network for the UR CTSI.