Biography

Specialties and research/medical interests

Health Informatics, Community and Family Medicine, Medical Humanities and Social Sciences, Neurology, Pediatric Internal Medicine, Patient safety

Research focus

• Developmental and behavioral medicine
• Assessment and treatment of autism spectrum disorder and related neurodevelopmental disabilities, parenting and behavioral intervention for children with difficult behavior and developmental disabilities.

Research summary

I lead multiple research projects in the areas of Autism Spectrum Disorders and Developmental Disabilities: One series of projects is focused on autism and developmental screening in primary care medical settings. We have an ongoing quality improvement initiate at Children’s Mercy, which has yielded a large health database. We have use this database for additional projects related to health disparities and health outcomes related to screening. I am interested in research related to parenting and autism/developmental disabilities, healthcare access, health and treatment outcomes, dissemination, and the education and training of healthcare professionals about developmental disabilities. Finally, I am the site PI for a large epidemiological study on autism and developmental disabilities funded by the Centers for Disease Control.