Ann M. Dozier, Ph.D.

Research: Maternal Child Health; Perinatal outcomes; Breastfeeding Program Evaluation; Survey design and development; Global Health; Clinical Research Recruitment; Community Based Participatory Research

Dr. Dozier's current research and fieldwork focus is program evaluation methods including integration of qualitative and quantitative research methods and on maternal child health (MCH) outcomes. The latter includes data analysis, evaluation and data driven program planning through work with a federally funded Healthy Start Project (reducing disparities in infant mortality/perinatal outcomes) and leading several federally funded breastfeeding program evaluations based in Monroe County. Since 2007 Dr. Dozier has been continuously funded through NIH NICHD (R01) to promote breastfeeding among low income and minority women (Community Partnership for Breastfeeding Promotion and Support: Creating System Change). Her other MCH related work includes: faculty advisor to two distance learning programs to promote MCH data analytic capacity building among community based organizations and state health departments; oversight of the upstate New York Finger Lakes Region Perinatal Database containing extensive records on all births from 1998 to present from this nine county region; and a maternal micronutrient project in Tibet. In 2015 she received NYS Department of Health funding to establish a Maternal Infant Health Center of Excellence to serve over 40 programs across NYS that provide services to at risk women of childbearing age.

Dr. Dozier's interest in program evaluation extends to assessing system level change. She served as the first evaluator for the National Center for Deaf Health Research (a CDC funded Prevention Research Center) and current serves in a similar capacity for the URMC's Clinical Translational Science Institute (CTSI) and Center for AIDS Research.

Through the CTSI's Community Engagement (now Population Health) core Dr. Dozier spearheads the initiative to improve recruitment and retention into clinical research focusing both on improving attitudes in the community about research participation and on improving recruitment and retention methods used by investigators.

Dr. Dozier's community participatory work extends to international venues. She led or participated in Rapid Assessment Procedures used to assess community perceptions, opinions and practices in Costa Rica and India (technology and health); the Dominican Republic (formative evaluation pre/post intervention of smoking cessation intervention in disenfranchised communities) and Grenada (community based cardiovascular health initiative). Her other international work was serving as faculty on an ethnography conducted in McMurdo, Antarctica studying the intersection of culture and health in a remote environment.

Dr. Dozier has served in a variety of leadership capacities in the Maternal Child Health Section of the American Public Health Association including Program Planner, Section Councilor and Chair. She is the APHA delegate to the US Breastfeeding Committee and is a Standing Member of the Nursing and Clinical Related Sciences study section for NIH.