2 awarded Behavioral Sciences’ White Coats for Black Lives fellowships
LEXINGTON, Ky. (Aug. 22, 2024) — Two University of Kentucky College of Medicine students have been chosen for the fourth cohort of the White Coats for Black Lives fellowships.
Chisom Iloegbunam and Louise Scharff were recently awarded the fellowships created by the Department of Behavioral Science.
The fellowships were developed to enhance medical students’ understanding of health disparities, political and social inequalities and health care inequities experienced by Black Americans due to historical explicit bias and contemporary implicit bias across the health care system.
The hope is that the experience will enhance medical school training, increase the understanding of how behavioral science research can help to address health disparities and enable students to be better prepared to care for underserved Black patient populations.
Over the course of 18 months, each fellow will work with a Behavioral Science faculty mentor on a research or community-engaged project that addresses the health of Black Americans.
Iloegbunam will be mentored by Justin X. Moore, Ph.D., associate professor of behavioral science. She will study the association of allostatic load, perceived discrimination and nativity (U.S. vs. non-U.S.-born Black people) in a representative gender nonspecific population through the National Institute of Health’s All of Us database. She will also qualitatively examine the role of perceived everyday discrimination on health in U.S.-born and non-U.S.-born Black people by conducting interviews.
“I am super excited and grateful to have been awarded the White Coats for Black Lives Fellowship. As an African American woman myself, I have seen and experienced how disparities across all specialties of healthcare truly affect the relationship African Americans have with healthcare professionals,” said Iloegbunam. “Through this fellowship, I not only hope to gain experience in clinical research, but I also hope to better equip physicians with the knowledge and tools to better address disparities in my community.”
Scharff will be mentored by Hilary L. Surratt, Ph.D., associate professor of behavioral science. Through her project, she will also analyze data in the national All of Us database to examine the prevalence of adverse childhood experiences and social determinants of health across racial and ethnic groups to understand the contributions of these factors to current health problems, healthcare access and utilization, and to apply the knowledge gained to recommend changes to clinical practice where needed.
“I am so excited and honored to be a part of the White Coats for Black Lives Fellowship and look forward to working alongside Dr. Surratt,” said Scharff. “My greatest hope for this fellowship position is to develop research that leads to positive change in the field of medicine.”
Fellows receive a stipend and will present their projects to the campus community in the spring of 2026.
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