Dinushika Mohottige
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, NY·Public Health & Epidemiology·Early-career
Black Americans develop kidney failure at two to four times the rate of White Americans. Their kidney disease also tends to worsen faster.
- Fields
Public Health & Epidemiology
Medicine & Clinical Research
Social Science
- Topics
chronic kidney disease
kidney failure
end-stage kidney disease
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through May 2029
What they work on
- Quantify over time how structural racism relates to poor kidney health in Black individuals with APOL1 high-risk alleles, using three large APOL1-enriched cohort studies.
- Characterize how Black patients with chronic kidney disease and APOL1 risk alleles, and their clinicians, experience structural racism in health care and communities, using photovoice, focus groups and interviews.
- Pilot a navigator-led, patient-centered intervention, co-designed with a multidisciplinary stakeholder board, to reduce the effects of structural racism on kidney health outcomes.
More about the research
Part of the risk comes from high-risk versions (alleles) of the APOL1 gene. But only about 12–14% of Black individuals carry them, and carriers do not always develop kidney failure. Other conditions, such as high blood pressure, HIV and COVID-19, are thought to add a 'second hit'. This project asks whether structural racism acts as a 'third hit'. Structural racism means discriminatory policies and practices built into systems such as housing, wealth and health care.
Why it matters
Black patients with APOL1 high-risk gene variants face elevated risk of chronic kidney disease progression and kidney failure. Measuring how structural racism adds to that risk, and testing a navigator-led support program, could point to practical ways for health systems to narrow racial gaps in kidney outcomes. It may also show which social factors matter most for these patients.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Catherine Butler
University of Washington, WA·Medicine & Clinical Research·Early-career
Identify the concepts that matter in the kidney transplant evaluation experience, using a literature review, existing interview transcripts, and focus groups with referred patients, family members and clinicians.
Anthony Muiru
University of California-San Francisco, CA·Medicine & Clinical Research·Early-career
Determine the clinical significance of unexplained leukocyturia (white blood cells in urine) and hematuria (blood in urine) among adults in rural East Africa, by following SEARCH-CKD participants over time and measuring markers in collected samples.
Tanika Kelly
University of Illinois Chicago, IL·Public Health & Epidemiology
Recruit 300 diverse adults with and without diabetic kidney disease and collect blood and environmental exposure data, such as metals and social conditions, every year for three years.
The school
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai: 45 labs on PI Pages, $1.0B a year on research, 62 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.