Engaging Immigrants in Health Services Research
There is a need to make concerted efforts to include foreign-born populations in HSR and this may mean shirking traditional methods.
Julie Ressalam is AcademyHealth’s Spring 2023 Health Policy Fellow. She is a doctoral student in Health Services Research (PhD) at the University of Colorado School of Public Health. Julie worked for nearly six years at the Center for Bioethics and Humanities at the University of Colorado in empirical bioethics and health services research. She took part in the activities of funded studies investigating topics such as physicians' attitudes towards patients with disability, medical aid in dying in Colorado, and stakeholder engagement in translational research. Currently, she works on the Robert Wood Johnson Systems for Action program team overseeing research translation and dissemination efforts including development of research syntheses, briefs, toolkits and training sessions.
Julie has served in several leadership positions including as Chair of the Immigrant and Refugee Commission for the City of Aurora where she developed and finalized the Aurora Immigrant Integration Plan and established partnerships with organizations serving these communities to move forward regarding important policy issues such as voting access, healthcare utilization, and obtaining resources for families in need.
Ms. Ressalam earned her Master of Public Health in Epidemiology from Saint Louis University’s College for Public Health and Social Justice and her Bachelor of Science in Biobehavioral Health at Pennsylvania State University.
Julie’s research interests include health equity, immigrant health, health disparities, mental healthcare utilization, and mixed methods approaches to health services research.
Authored by Julie Ressalam, M.P.H.
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