Contacts

Dr. Karen Patricia Williams, Associate Professor (tenured) expertise is in community-based research and health services research with medically underserved women. Her transdisciplinary education, BA degree in Journalism; MA degree in Adult and Continuing Education/Higher Education Administration and; PhD in Community Development, have provided her with a unique perspective that has informed her research.

RESEARCH:
The complexity of the phenomena health disparities requires researchers and public health educators to use many strategies to devise ways of reducing disparities and implement programs with the goal of eliminating those disparities. Research conducted under the direction of Dr. Williams includes design, testing and implementation of a multigenerational life-span breast and cervical cancer prevention and screening intervention focused on Black, Latina and Arab women – The Kin Keeper SM Cancer Prevention Intervention. This work is bringing knowledge to bear on cancer prevention and control by: 1) contributing to the theories that link community, provider and family to behavioral outcomes for medically underserved women; 2) testing and implementing the model to demonstrate its adaptability to other underserved populations; 3) promoting cancer prevention/screening practices across the life span of women through a multigenerational model; and 4) expanding the use of existing resources by building on established programs, such as maternal/prenatal care programs.

This research has been/is funded by the National Institutes of Health National Institute for Nursing Research and Komen for the Cure.

Research Team:

Brandon Bishop
Study Data manager

Joseph Gardiner, Ph.D., Professor
Study Biostatistician
Dr. Gardiner is the Director of the Division of Biostatistics in the Department of
Epidemiology and Professor of Biostatistics and Epidemiology in the College of Human
Medicine.

Hiam Hamade, RN, MPH
Study Community Health Worker Supervisor

Murlisa Lockett, MA
Study Community Health Worker Supervisor

Adnan Hammad, Ph.D., Adjunct Associate
Study Research Collaborator

LeeAnne Roman, Ph.D., Associate Professor
Study Research Collaborator

Louis Penner, Ph.D., Professor
Study Research Collaborator
Dr. Penner is a Professor, Wayne State University, and Senior Scientist, Communication
and Behavioral Oncology, Karmanos Cancer Institute; He is an Adjunct Research
Scientist, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan.

Thomas Templin, Ph.D., Professor
Study Psychometrician

Ruth Enid Zambrana, PhD, Professor
Study Research Consultant
Dr. Zambrana, is the Director of Research for the Consortium on Race, Gender and
Ethnicity at University of Maryland and Professor in the Women’s Studies Department.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
Manuscripts (Peer-Reviewed)

1. Pratt C., Hurst R., Williams K. Evaluating Community- Based Cardiovascular Prevention Programs in African American Communities. Public Health Management & Practice., 5(6): 81-90, 1999.

2. Williams, Karen Patricia, Community Development’s Role in Cardiovascular Disease Prevention Projects for African Americans. Sociological Practice. 2(3): 205-219, 2000.

3. Williams, K.P., Sheppard V., Hurst R. Capacity Building: A Strategy to Help Narrow the Health Disparity for African American Women. Center for Research on African American Women Journal. 3: 49-52, 2002.

4. Sims-Boykin, S., Zambrana, R.E., Williams, K.P., Salas-Lopez, D., Sheppard, V., Headley, A. Lessons Learned from A Mentoring Experience of Underrepresented Minority Female Medical School Faculty: Momentum to Increase Retention and Promotion. Journal of Association Academic Minority Physicians. 14: 15-18, 2003.

5. Williams, K.P., Hines, R.D., Livingston J.N. Recruiting African American Women into Chemoprevention Trials: Gail Model as an Educational Tool. International Journal of Cancer Prevention. 1: 63-68, 2004.

6. Williams, K. P., Sheppard, V.B., Hines, R.D., Livingston J.N. Issues of Trust in the Recruitment of African American Women into Breast Cancer Chemoprevention Trials. International Journal of Cancer Prevention. 1:137-143, 2004.

7. Sheppard, V., Williams, K.P., Richardson, J.T. Women’s Priorities for Lay Health Home Visitors: Implications for Eliminating Health Disparities among Underserved Women. Journal of Health and Social Policy. 18(3): 19-35, 2005.

8. Williams, Karen Patricia, African American Women’s Knowledge of Breast Chemoprevention Trials and Their Basis for Participation. Southwest Michigan Medical Journal. 2:16-21, 2005.

9. Williams, Karen Patricia, Kin Keeper: A Family-Focused Prevention Model for AfricanAmerican Women. Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment. 15(2&3):291- 305, 2007.

10. Williams K.P., Mullan P.B. Fletcher F. E. Working with African American Women to Develop cancer Literacy Assessment Tools. Journal of Cancer Education. 22:241-244, 2007.

11. Williams, K.P., Reckase, M., Rivera-Vazquez, O. Toward the Development of Cancer Literacy Assessment Tools. Journal of Michigan Pubic Health. 2(1):21-31 2008.

12. Williams, K.P., Sheppard, V.B., Todem, D., Mabiso, A., Wulu, J.T., Hines, R.D. Family Matters in Mammography Screening among African American Women 40 and Older. Journal of the National Medical Association. 100(5): 508-515, 2008.

13. Williams, K. P., Mullan, P.B., Todem, D. Moving from Theory to Practice: Implementing the Kin Keeper SM Model. Health Education Research. Advanced Access May 29, 2008.24(2); 343-356, 2009.

14. Williams, K.P., Mabiso, A., Jackson, T., Lawshe, D., Maurer, J. Breast and Cervical Cancer Control Program Enrollees Inform Kin Keeper SM Curriculum. Journal of Cancer Education. 24(4):257-260, 2009.

15. Williams, K.P., Reiter, P., Mabiso, A., Paskett, E. Family History of Cancer Patients Predicts Papanicolaou Behavior for African-American and White Women. Cancer. 115(1):179-89, 2009.

16. Sheppard, V.B., Williams, K.P., Jennings, Y., Robinson, D., Cameron, R.L., Taylor, K. Empowering Black Women’s Breast Cancer Treatment Decisions. Psycho-Oncology. In Press.

17. Rivera-Vasquez, O., Mabiso, A., Hammad, A., Williams, K.P. A Community-Based Approach to Translating and Testing Cancer Literacy Assessment Tools. Journal of Cancer Education. 24(4):319-325, 2009.

18. LaVeist, T.A., Isaac, L.A., Williams, K.P. Mistrust of Healthcare Organizations is Associated with Underutilization of Health Services Trust, Health Service Research. Advanced Access September 2, 2009. 44(6), December 2009.

19. Todem, D., Williams, K.P., A Hierarchical Model for Double Exchangeable Binary Data with Dependence between the Success Probability. Statistics in Medicine.28:2967- 2988, 2009.

20. Mabiso, A., Williams, K.P., Todem, D., Templin, T. Longitudinal Analysis of DomainLevel Breast Cancer Literacy among African-American Women. Health Education Research. Advanced Access October 27, 2009. 25(1):151-161, February 2010.

21. Mousa, SM, Brooks, E., Dietrich, M., Henderson, A., McLean, C., Williams, KP Community health workers speak out about the Kin Keeper SM Model. Journal of Cancer Education. 25(3):236-241.

22. Williams, K.P., Mabiso, A., Lo, Y., Penner L. Mammography Screening Trends: The Perspective of African American Women Born Pre/Post World War II. Journal of the National Medical Association. 102:452-459, 2010.

23. Williams, K.P., Mabiso, A., Todem, D., Hill-Ashford, Y., Hamade, H., Palmisono, G., Zambrana, R.E. Differences in Knowledge of Breast Cancer Screening Modalities among African-American, Latina and Arab-American Women. Preventing Chronic Disease. 8:1-8, 2011.

24. Arshad, S., Williams, K.P., Mabiso, A., Soliman, A.S., Evaluating the Knowledge of Breast Cancer Screening and Prevention of Arab-American Women in Michigan. Journal of Cancer Education. Online May 2010.

25. Williams, K.P., Expanding the Influence of Cancer Education. Journal of Cancer Education. 25(3):275-276.

Book Chapters (Peer-Reviewed)

1. Williams, Karen Patricia, Kin Keepers: Breast Cancer Prevention for African American Women. Black Families 4th Edition. McAdoo, H.P. Sage Publications, CA 2007.

2. Williams, K.P., Hines, R.D., Livingston, J.N. Recruiting African American Women into Chemoprevention Trials: Gail Model as an Education Tool. Female African Americans and Health Research. Nova Science Publishing, NY 2008.

3. Sheppard, VB, Flynt Wallington, S, Williams, KP, Lucus, W. A Decision Support Intervention for Black Women Eligible for Adjuvant Systemic Therapy. Cancer Disparities: Causes and Evidence Based Solutions Elk, R, Landrie, H. Springer Publishing Company, NY, NY 2011.

Instruments

Williams, Karen Patricia. Breast Cancer Literacy Assessment Tool, © 2007. Williams, Karen Patricia. Cervical Cancer Literacy Assessment Tool, © 2007.

Curriculum

Williams, Karen Patricia, Lawshe, Dorothy C. The Kin Keeper SM Cancer Prevention Intervention Curriculum Guide and Workbook, © 2006.

Publications