Aantaki Raisa, MA, PhD

Washington University in St. Louis (WU)

I did my PhD in health communication and I am interested in designing, implementing and evaluating communication-based preventative health interventions for cancer intended for minoritized, underprivileged population groups. I am especially passionate about reducing health inequities by co-creating interventions with community-based participatory research and community engagement, and thus developing interventions that are contextually-appropriate, culturally sensitive and theoretically grounded. My population of interest is new immigrants, as they go through acculturation processes. I want to study how they adapt to the new healthcare system, perceptions of health and what barriers they face in accessing and utilizing the healthcare systems. To develop interventions I not only want to focus on what these communities lack but also evaluate the strengths in these communities in terms of diet, nutrition, community-level bonds, and other ingenuous solutions these communities may come up with to address their problems within limited-resource settings.