Caren J. Frost

Caren J. Frost, PhD, MPH is Research Professor in the College of Social Work and Adjunct Associate Professor in Family & Preventive Medicine at the University of Utah. She concurrently serves as the University’s Associate Vice President for Research Integrity & Compliance and Associate Dean for Research in the College of Social Work.

Education

• BA, History – University of Utah (1982)
• MPH, Public Health – Columbia University (1988)
• PhD, Anthropology – University of Utah (1995)
• Conflict Resolution Certificate – Cornell University (2023–present)
• Yale Bioethics Certificate – Yale University (2021–present)

Research Interests

Dr Frost is a qualitative methodologist specializing in ethnography and phenomenology within mixed-methods frameworks. Her work centers on research ethics, women’s health across the lifespan, refugee and immigrant well-being, cancer prevention, and substance-use-disorder workforce development. She collaborates extensively with community partners to translate findings into culturally responsive interventions.

Publication Trends

Across 90+ peer-reviewed works, her recent papers (2021-2025) reveal three dominant strands: (1) epidemiologic cohort analyses from the LEGACY Girls Study linking early-life factors to pubertal timing and breast-cancer risk; (2) intervention and workforce studies evaluating training modalities for paraprofessional substance-use counselors; and (3) global- and domestic-qualitative inquiries into refugee entrepreneurship, maternal health access in Morocco, and Latina women’s experiences with labor-after-cesarean counseling.

Awards & Honors

• Fulbright Specialist Roster (Finland & Morocco)
• Delta Omega Honorary Society in Public Health
• Mary Shields McPhee Memorial Award – Research & Community Service
• Honors Professorship, University of Utah Honors College
• Interdisciplinary Teaching Award, University of Utah
• Faculty Fellow for Research Ethics
• Fulbright Exchange, University of Botswana
• Marriner S. Eccles Graduate Fellowship

Grants & Funding

Dr Frost has served as PI or Co-Investigator on 22 externally funded projects since 2001, totaling several million dollars. Key funders include NIH (NCI, NICHHD, NCATS), CDC, Office of Research Integrity, Korea Foundation, doTerra Foundation, and state agencies. Recent awards focus on research-ethics education, visual informed-consent tools, refugee and immigrant health, and breast-cancer prevention cohort studies.

Teaching & Mentorship

She teaches graduate courses such as Qualitative & Mixed Methods in Public Health and mentors doctoral, masters, and undergraduate students across social work, anthropology, and public health programs. She integrates VR training and inter-professional education into workforce-development curricula.