Food Insecurity and Hypertension Medication Adherence Serve as Model for Further Exploration
This article is a part of our CTSC event recap series.
On Thursday, September 22, 2022, Dr. Macarius Donneyong, Assistant Professor with joint faculty appointments in the Colleges of Pharmacy and Public Health at The Ohio State University joined the Clinical and Translational Science Collaborative of Cleveland and an intimate group of health equity advocates at the Linsalata Alumni Center to talk about social determinants of health and prescribed medication adherence as a part of a Departmental Diversity Seminar made possible by the Office of the Provost.
The stormy weather was indicative of the perfect storm that occurs where poverty leads to inability to access healthy food, and, consequently, a lack of medication adherence (involuntary or voluntary).
Joined by undergraduate Case Western Reserve University students, faculty and staff from the School of Medicine and Strategic Partnerships and Research Collaboration office, and a community health worker from Cleveland State University, Drs. Donneyong and Dr. Emmitt Jolly, Associate Professor of Biology at Case Western Reserve University, facilitated conversations that explored some of the perceived and actual barriers of scientific exploration of social/behavioral problems like medication adherence.
“There are many social determinants of health. By focusing on specific examples, we can gain greater insights into challenges that the social determinants create and develop interdisciplinary solutions,” Dr. Donneyong explained. His presentation centered the social determinant of food insecurity and adherence to hypertension medication as the specific example for this talk.
Dr. Donneyong is a recipient of two Center for Clinical and Translational Science (CCTS) pilot awards–a social determinants of health pilot award exploring data-driven approaches to unraveling the contextual social determinants of health of racial/ethnic health disparities in 2022 and a CCTS pilot award on secondary analysis of existing datasets exploring racial disparities in receipt of pain treatment among cancer survivors in 2021.
To learn more about Dr. Donneyong’s research please click HERE. If you’re a department at Case Western Reserve University interested in promoting diversity in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, learn more about the series and apply HERE.