Creating better care for Milwaukee’s diverse communities
Medical laboratory science professor leads study analyzing telehealth and its impact on the African American population.
By Anna Wallace, communication intern in the Office of Marketing and Communication
Dr. Nilanjan Lodh is an assistant professor in the Department of Medical Laboratory Science at the College of Health Sciences. Lodh is the principal investigator of a project aimed at determining the health and well-being of the African American community on Milwaukee’s North side via assessment of telehealth and health monitoring intervention. Lodh’s research is one of two winning projects from the President’s Challenge for Racial Justice and Equity Response Funding.
The health care system was turned upside-down a year and a half ago when the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the globe.
Especially in the early days of the pandemic, patients needed more care than ever as hospitals were being overwhelmed.
The increased demand for care catapulted telehealth to the forefront of health care as a new and innovative way to connect with providers without needing an in-office visit.
But the quick rollout of telehealth at Milwaukee County came with complications — namely a lack of understanding of people’s knowledge, accessibility and usage of telehealth are not part of intervention design. So, Lodh assembled a team of experts to solve the problem.
“Because the COVID-19 crisis and its lingering impact will be long lasting, especially in the communities of color, it is paramount that the knowledge gained about the impact of interventions within the minority communities is systematically evaluated and appropriately shared, which is currently non-existent,” Lodh says.
Lodh’s project aims to evaluate new telehealth interventions among African Americans communities in the Lindsay Heights neighborhood on the north side of Milwaukee. The interventions are also related to remote monitoring of chronic health conditions, such as diabetes and asthma, which have rapidly emerged as major factors of co-morbidity and premature mortality when combined with a COVID-19 diagnosis, particularly within the African American population.
Lodh’s project is a winner of this year’s President’s Challenge for Racial Justice and Equity Response Funding. The challenge and its programming awarded grant money to two projects designed to focus on the urgent issue of elevating and advancing racial justice and equity across Milwaukee’s various communities. Funds were awarded to the winning projects by Marquette University, American Family Insurance and Johnson Controls Foundation.
Lodh’s team is using the funds to gather retrospective data to determine the effectiveness of telehealth and to create at least three community forums to connect with the Milwaukee community and disseminate research findings.
Lodh also plans to conduct an intervention study which will monitor at least 50 people with chronic pre-existing health conditions by providing them with cost-effective wearable devices, such as Fitbit and glucose monitors. These studies will also engage four undergraduate students in a year-long Public Health Equity Fellowship, offering impactful opportunities to young researchers.
“I truly believe that the involvement and exposure of students in a community engagement project is the best way to create future researchers and leaders who can understand the true essence of meaningful community relationships, which will be of immense value to them in their professional life,” Lodh says.
Aside from his team of undergraduate researchers, Lodh is backed by a team of experts, each contributing a different skillset to the research project. The research team includes Dr. Aleksandra J. Snowden, associate professor of Social and Cultural Sciences, as well as Dr. Praveen Madiraju, associate professor of Computer Science, both in the Klingler College of Arts and Sciences. Outside research partners include Antonio Butts, executive director of Walnut Way Conservation Corp., Pastor Teresa Thomas-Boyd, Cassandra M. Flagg, executive director of Green and Healthy Communities LLC and Dr. Sean Stevens-Fabry, of the Bread of Healing Clinic.
Together the research team will work to connect with Milwaukee’s African American community in hopes of increasing telehealth awareness and accessibility and create better patient outcomes for people of color diagnosed with and recovering from COVID-19.
