Director of Health Equity Research
MELISSA GUTIERREZ KAPHEIM
Professional Summary
| Melissa Gutierrez-Kapheim joined SUHI in 2022 and serves as the Director of Health Equity Research. Her research focuses on understanding mental wellbeing, particularly loneliness, and their relationship to neighborhood determinates of health across the lifecourse and community engaged approaches to address associated adverse effects. Dr. Gutierrez-Kapheim has led multiple initiatives to understand the relationship between health and neighborhoods. She serves as lead investigator on the “Empower Your Voice” study, examining the mental wellbeing of Chicago girls, and is Principal Investigator on a National Institutes of Health training grant exploring the connection between loneliness and youth sports participation. She is recognized as an expert in community-engaged research methods for primary data collection, intervention development, and results dissemination.
Through strategic community partnerships, Dr. Gutierrez-Kapheim has led several initiatives advancing health equity in Chicago neighborhoods. As Co-Investigator on the Chicagoland CEAL (Community Engagement Alliance), she leads research on community health worker wellbeing while supporting the training and evaluation of programs that strengthen community-based organizations. She previously worked at SUHI (2006-2016) as an epidemiologist and as a program director at the University of Illinois Chicago in the Departments of Medicine and Nursing. |
Education
- PhD Public Health, University of Illinois Chicago, 2022
