M. Felice Ghilardi
CUNY City College, NY·Public Health & Epidemiology
Parkinson's disease is a progressive disorder of the nervous system that causes movement problems such as tremor and stiffness, along with non-movement symptoms, and current therapies only partly and temporarily help. Hispanic people develop Parkinson's at about the same rate as white non-Hispanic people, yet their disease management is worse and they make up well under 5% of clinical trial participants rather than the roughly 20% expected.
- Fields
Public Health & Epidemiology
Medicine & Clinical Research
Neuroscience
- Topics
Parkinson's disease
health disparities
Hispanic health
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Mar 2029
What they work on
- Deliver Parkinson's disease education to Hispanic communities in New York City by selecting, training and monitoring promotores de salud (local health educators) and community stakeholders, supported by newsletters, social media and disease-related websites.
- Assess feasibility, adherence and retention of Hispanic patients with Parkinson's disease in a two-week inpatient rehabilitation program, measuring effects on patient and caregiver quality of life immediately after and six months later.
- Test a comparable outpatient exercise and multidisciplinary care program for Hispanic patients with Parkinson's disease, tracking participation and gathering patient feedback to improve engagement in research.
- Build outreach models and sustainable partnerships with community-based organizations that can serve as infrastructure for future Parkinson's clinical studies, education and care in Hispanic and other populations.
More about the research
Low participation feeds a cycle of stigma and inadequate care. This project asks why these gaps exist, including cultural reasons, and tests ways to close them in the Hispanic community of New York City, which is about a quarter of the city's population.
Why it matters
Hispanic patients with Parkinson's disease receive poorer care and are strongly underrepresented in clinical trials. This project could yield tested outreach models, trained community health educators and durable community partnerships that increase research participation and improve care, while also assessing whether inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation programs improve quality of life for patients and caregivers, helping reduce health disparities.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Bettina Drake
Washington University in St Louis, MO·Public Health & Epidemiology
Monitor and evaluate cancer burden and differences in screening, mortality and morbidity across 82 Missouri and Illinois counties, comparing rural communities and Medically Underserved Areas.
Gabriel Frietze
University of Texas at El Paso, TX·Public Health & Epidemiology
Identify barriers to and facilitators of joining diabetes self-management programs among Mexican-origin Hispanic adults with type 2 diabetes and their healthcare providers, to guide the design of an online intervention.
Sheldon Riklon
University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, AR·Public Health & Epidemiology
Test whether Ājjmuurur Baamḷe, a family-model diabetes self-management program, improves HbA1c, blood pressure, lipids, BMI, and self-efficacy among Marshallese patients, in a cluster randomized trial delivered by community health workers in faith-based organizations.
The school
CUNY City College: 9 labs on PI Pages, $72M a year on research, 31 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
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