Allison

Barlow

,

PhD

Since 2016, I have been Director of Johns Hopkins Center for American Indian Health, which I joined in 1991. I am also Associate Scientist in the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. My research and service portfolio focus on developing public health interventions with tribal communities to address behavioral and mental health disparities among Native children and families. Projects to date have spanned early childhood home-visiting to promote parenting and early child development and to address early childhood obesity; suicide, depression, and substance abuse prevention; adolescent obesity and diabetes prevention; and most recently, the promotion of youth entrepreneurship to address the twin problems of poverty and poor health trajectories. My research has produced evidence to support the effectiveness of Native community health workers to promote behavioral and mental health, overcome access barriers in low income communities and build local human capital through an indigenous workforce. I also co-founded the Native Vision program in 1997 with the NFL Players Association to promote Native youth development through the mobilization of professional and collegiate athletes to participate in camps and afterschool activities promoting education and healthy lifestyles. Further, I established with Dr. Mathu Santosham a graduate level "Public Health certificate in American Indian Health" at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, in which hundreds of American Indian and Alaska Native students and faculty have participated.
Dr. Barlow's education includes a PhD from the University of Amsterdam (2013); an MPH from Johns Hopkins (1997); an MA pursued through a Rotary International Graduate Scholarship Award from the University of Melbourne, Australia focused on Aboriginal Studies (1990); and a BA from Dartmouth College (1986). She has received Martin Luther King Community Service/Social Justice Awards from Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions (2007) and Dartmouth College (2008), and the Indian Health Service Director's Award in 2013.