Pilot Grant Recipients

Learn more about BU-SHARP’s Emerging Scholars Pilot Grants.

Danielle Haley, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the BU SPH Department of Community Health Sciences. Her research expertise includes studying the social determinants of health, with a focus on how features of the social and built environment, especially health policies, create disparities in health and health care utilization among people with or at increased risk for HIV. She utilizes multilevel, geospatial, and qualitative methods to explore these topics. Her BU-SHARP funded pilot project, “Cannabis Use and Dementia in Older U.S. Adults: Results from NLSY79”, will characterize life course sequences of cannabis use and evaluate links between cannabis use and cognitive function in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLYS79). Dr. Haley will apply sequence analysis to early to working age adulthood cannabis use reported by NLSY79 participants, describing clusters overall and differences for racial/ethnic minority groups and rural residents, as well as estimate the associations of these cannabis use clusters with midlife cognitive outcomes in NLSY79. Findings from this proposal will form the foundation of an R01 proposal to further elaborate the prevalence, lifecourse patterns, and AD/ADRD consequences of cannabis use.

Audrey Murchland, PhD, is a Postdoctoral Associate in the BU SPH Department of Epidemiology. Dr. Murchland has expertise in social and dementia epidemiology with a specific focus on using advanced methods to investigate health impacts of complex social exposures over the life course using observational data. Her BU-SHARP funded pilot project, “Beyond the Monolith of ‘Rurality’: Comparing Historical Social Characteristics of U.S. Rural Contexts” will evaluate how historical social and demographic characteristics of U.S. rural contexts vary across places and to determine whether these characteristics serve as adverse or protective factors influencing ADRD risk and progression. Using nationally representative data from 17 panels of the General Social Survey (1972–1990), linked to historical US Census demographic indicators, and a diverse subcohort of the Health and Retirement Study with detailed lifecourse residential and schooling histories and repeated cognitive assessments, this project will: evaluate the extent to which historical social and demographic characteristics of US rural contexts vary independently of local material resources, and assess whether these historical social characteristics in early life are associated with ADRD risk and mortality, independent of individual- and community-level material resources.