UNL’s Minority Health Disparities Initiative, funded through the Nebraska Tobacco Settlement Trust Fund, seeks to eliminate race- and ethnicity-based health disparities in Nebraska and beyond. Researchers involved with the initiative have studied health disparities affecting native-born Mexicans, the LGBT community, Native Americans, women and others. The initiative intends to build a community of researchers with active interest in minority health and health disparities, increase participation of minority scholars at all levels in health-related research and encourage emerging health scholars to pursue a research career in minority health disparities.
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Rick Bevins is a member of the Minority Health Disparities Initiative leadership team. His research program bridges areas of neuroscience, pharmacology, animal learning and cognition, psychology and immunology. He uses animal models as a tool to elucidate factors involved in the etiology of drug abuse.
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Dr. Kathryn Holland directs the Sexual Assault and Sexual Health Lab. In the lab, she studies a variety of issues related to sexual assault and sexual health—with the goal of helping people (especially those who are marginalized by their gender and/or sexual identities) live safer and healthier lives by understanding and changing oppressive social institutions and systems.
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Jordan Soliz is a member of the Minority Health Disparities Initiative leadership team. His research focuses on ethnic-racial identity and psychosocial well-being with a particular focus on family processes related to socialization of identity, preparation of managing bias, and communicative dynamics related to family solidarity and secure-identity. Dr. Soliz also specializes in multiethnic-racial families and experiences of multiethnic-racial individuals in various domains (e.g., families, friendships).
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Elizabeth Clausing is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. She is particularly interested in how stress can impact the body through epigenetic inheritance via DNA methylation in mothers and children. She is especially interested in how early childhood experiences (e.g., low socioeconomic status, childhood adversity) can affect health in adulthood. Her work is interdisciplinary, bridging anthropology, public health, and genetics. Clausing received her degrees from the University of California-San Diego and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.