Kathryn Pitkin Derose

Kathryn Pitkin Derose serves as Senior Policy Researcher at RAND and Professor at the RAND School of Public Policy, with a dual appointment as Professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her work bridges academic research and practical policy solutions to address critical health disparities affecting vulnerable populations, particularly through community-engaged approaches.

Dr. Derose's educational background includes a Ph.D. in health services research and M.P.H. in population and family health from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a B.A. in comparative area studies, Latin America from Duke University. Her six years of prior work experience in Latin America before graduate studies deeply informs her research perspective and methodology.

Her research program focuses on understanding and addressing health disparities through multiple lenses: faith-based organizations as vehicles for health promotion, community-based participatory research methodologies, immigrant healthcare access challenges, and culturally tailored interventions for Latino populations. She has developed and tested numerous multi-component interventions addressing HIV-related stigma, obesity, physical activity, and food insecurity, often working at the intersection of religion, community organizations, and public health.

Analysis of her recent publications reveals a consistent focus on community-engaged intervention research, particularly faith-based and park-based approaches to address health disparities. Her work demonstrates increasing sophistication in multi-level intervention design, with recent studies incorporating urban gardens, nutritional counseling, and digital health components. The geographic scope spans from local Los Angeles communities to international settings in the Dominican Republic, Honduras, and Bolivia, reflecting her commitment to both domestic and global health equity.

• Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (highest U.S. government honor for early-career scientists)
• Fulbright Scholar to Ecuador

Dr. Derose has served as principal investigator on multiple NIH-funded studies developing interventions to address health disparities, including church-based efforts to reduce HIV-related stigma, promote HIV testing, address obesity, and improve antiretroviral therapy adherence among food-insecure populations. Her current work includes testing an integrated urban gardens and peer nutritional counseling intervention in the Dominican Republic and multi-component church- and park-based interventions to increase physical activity among Latinos in the United States.

Her research program consistently involves partnerships with community organizations, religious institutions, and public health departments, demonstrating her commitment to community-engaged scholarship. She has developed numerous interventions in partnership with African American and Latino churches, urban parks departments, and faith-based organizations, creating sustainable models for addressing health disparities through existing community infrastructure.