09/21/21. Dr. William Latimer speaks with Dr. Kimberly Arcoleo, Research Professor at the University of Rhode Island. Dr. Arcoleo, is a health services researcher who earned her Master’s in Public Health and doctorate in Health Services Research from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. She completed a two-year fellowship in Health Disparities Research at Arizona State University’s Southwest Interdisciplinary Research Center where she gained critical knowledge of the role of culture and acculturation in health and healthcare decision-making. The overarching, long-term objective of Dr. Arcoleo’s program of research is to optimize ethnic minority and under-served children’s asthma health outcomes through evidence-based interventions at the child, family, school, and healthcare system levels with a focus on the role of culture in healthcare, mental health comorbidities, medication adherence, asthma education and case management. In this episode of Public Health America Dr. Arcoleo discusses caregivers’ cultural health beliefs and practices that may conflict with biomedical treatment guidelines, potentially leading to non-adherence with asthma management regimens and poor health outcomes for children. These beliefs and practices are frequently overlooked during a healthcare visit but are essential in understanding the cultural lens through which the child’s asthma is viewed so that a mutually agreeable asthma management plan can be developed and adhered to.
