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INSPIRE Lab: Interdisciplinary Social and Public Health Intervention Research for Equity.

INSPIRE Lab

The INSPIRE Lab—Interdisciplinary Social and Public Health Intervention Research for Equity—is dedicated to advancing health equity through innovative, interdisciplinary approaches to social and public health research.

Under the leadership of Dr. Liana Petruzzi, a health equity researcher and licensed clinical social worker, the lab focuses on designing, implementing, and evaluating interventions that address health disparities through social care interventions that simultaneously address mental health and social needs. 

The INSPIRE Lab’s research prioritizes improving access to healthcare, particularly maternal healthcare, by working with multi-sectoral community networks. Dr. Petruzzi is invested in community-based participatory research methodologies and practices that are essential to eradicate health inequities. Dr. Petruzzi seeks to expand collaborations across the Washington DC, Maryland, and Virginia areas, with a mission to foster equitable, multi-level health interventions that drive systemic change. 

Current Studies

The Black Solidarity Model with Healthy Start of Central Texas

As the evaluator of a $5 million Health Research Services Administration (HRSA) grant in partnership with Black Mamas ATX (BMATX) & Healing Hands Community Doula Project (HHCDP), Dr. Petruzzi and her team aim to improve maternal and infant health among Black and Latina families in Central Texas. Healthy Start provides 3 primary types of services: case management and care coordination, group-based prenatal, postpartum, and parenting education, and behavioral health services. 

BMATX and HHCDP provide a continuum of perinatal services through Healthy Start Central Texas. This program addresses gaps in maternal health services for Black women by increasing the perinatal support service workforce. It also provides holistic, culturally congruent perinatal care through community-based, perinatal support services which includes full-spectrum doula support, birth education, case management (PCHWs), mental health support (professional mental health counseling and support groups), and parent education (doulas, PCHWs and group classes).

The primary goals of this grant and program are as follows:

  1. Expand pre-existing multi-sectoral collaborative networks to establish a community consortium with maternal health and infant health stakeholders.
  2. Expand access to perinatal support services for Black and Latina women and birthing persons in Central Texas.
  3. Improve Black maternal and infant outcomes in Central Texas based on pre-specified, Healthy Start benchmarks: access to prenatal and postpartum healthcare, breastfeeding rates, depression screening and mental health service referrals, health behaviors during the perinatal period, infant care, and infant healthcare access.

Improving Perinatal Mental Health among Latinas through a Culturally Adapted, Multi-Level Intervention 

As principal investigator of a K01 Career Development Award from the National Institute of Minority Health & Health Disparities (NIMHD), Dr. Petruzzi will receive both didactic and experiential training in community intervention development, cultural adaptation, and hybrid effectiveness implementation clinical trial design.

In partnership with a community-based organization in Austin, Texas, El Buen Samaritano, Dr. Petruzzi will conduct a perinatal mental health needs assessment of Latinas in Central Texas. This needs assessment will inform the development of a culturally adapted, interdisciplinary intervention with promotores (community health workers) and social workers that simultaneously addresses the perinatal mental health and social needs of Latinas in Central Texas.

The specific aims are:

  1. Conduct a community assessment to identify the culturally relevant mental health and social needs of pregnant/postpartum Latina women in Central Texas.
  2. Combine, culturally and linguistically adapt two evidence-based interventions (problem-solving therapy and patient navigation) for pregnant Latina women to simultaneously address mental health and social needs
  3. Conduct a feasibility study to assess acceptability and feasibility of the intervention. 

Lab Bulletins