Nishadi Rajapakse, Ph.D., M.H.S.

I serve as the Program Director for research portfolio that focuses on type 2 diabetes health disparities in adult populations. This program supports observational studies, pilot, efficacy, effectiveness, and pragmatic trials, as well as natural experiment evaluations at the patient, family, provider, or community level to improve diabetes outcomes and quality of life and other patient-reported outcomes. The research focuses on Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) at the individual level to improve diabetes prevention and care and intervention research that focuses on cultural and linguistic tailoring and program adaptations of lifestyle and self-management interventions [e.g., National Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP), Diabetes Self-Management Education and Support (DSMES)], drug interventions focused on health disparities, and diverse engagement approaches.