Biography

Dr. Isa Williams Miles' research interests include health disparities, cancer prevention in African American populations, women's health, and health communication methods. As a community health scholar at Johns Hopkins University, she actively applied CBPR methods to each of these areas of research. Specifically, Dr. Miles worked on two post-doctorate research projects: 1) A community based evaluation and dissemination of hypertension prevention health communication materials; and 2) Designing, evaluating, and implementing a survey for a faith-based participatory intervention designed to increase breast health care among African American women. In her primary project, Dr. Miles worked with community members in East Baltimore and the leadership at The Men's Center, a CBO serving African American men living in East Baltimore, to evaluate and pilot a dissemination of hypertension prevention educational materials that were developed as a result of the research of a previous Kellogg Community Health Scholar, Dr. Lisa Benz-Scott. This project involved evaluating the accuracy and appropriateness of the materials for the community, receiving feedback from the community about ways in which the materials should be tailored to be more specific to the community's needs, working with the community to develop a plan for dissemination of the materials, and designing a proper evaluation plan to determine whether the pilot dissemination effort was successful. The community was involved in all aspects of the research including, but not limited to, deciding on methods to collect information, participating in all research and dissemination efforts, and establishing criteria for success of the dissemination. Dr. Miles was also part of a research team for a study funded by the Susan G. Komen Foundation that sought to determine if a faith-based participatory intervention could increase breast health care among African American women living in Baltimore. Eight churches in Baltimore participated in the study and each church elected one woman to serve as a program coordinator for the study. These lay health workers were part of the research team and were responsible for organizing a Women's Health Day Program at their church with a focus on breast cancer health and prevention. Dr. Miles had the primary responsibility of working with the lay health workers to develop, pilot-test, and plan for the implementation of a survey to collect relevant health and demographic information from all participants at the Women's Health Day Programs. In addition to her two research projects, Dr. Miles was affiliated with the Morgan-Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions. Following her Kellogg Fellowship, Dr. Miles spent 2 years as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer in the Physical Activity and Health Branch at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She then worked in the Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention at CDC for 6 years - 4 as a Behavioral Scientists leading formative research efforts for CDC's National HIV Behavioral Surveillance Study and 2 as a Health Communication Specialist developing and implementing national HIV prevention and awareness campaigns for at-risk populations. Dr. Miles is currently a Health Communication Strategist at Banyan Communications where she leads the development and execution of a variety of health communication products for the federal government, academic institutions, and non-profit agencies.