Jennifer Andersen, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in UAMS’ College of Medicine. Her research focuses on how interventions utilizing medical technology (e.g. telemedicine, remote monitoring) can improve healthcare access and health outcomes in underserved and minority communities, as well as examining how the social determinants of health affect healthcare access and health outcomes, particularly for people with cardiometabolic disease (e.g., diabetes) and cancer in rural and minority populations.
Dr. Andersen received a KL2 Mentored Career Development Award to explore the feasibility and acceptability of a remote glucose monitoring program for Marshallese women whose pregnancies are complicated by pre-gestational and gestational diabetes. Remote patient monitoring technology can transform management of pre-gestational and gestational diabetes during pregnancy for Marshallese women. Remote patient monitoring may have even greater benefits for Marshallese women when there is a lack of language concordance with their provider by overcoming language barriers to facilitate accurate transmission of patient data. The goals of this KL2 award are to propel the independent research career of Dr. Andersen, as well as to use the knowledge gained from this project to improve the outcomes for Marshallese women and their infants.
Dr. Andersen previously worked as a patient financial counselor where she saw the effects of health disparities in underserved communities. A first-generation college student, she entered the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL), where she earned her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology (with distinction, 2015) and a Master’s (2017) and PhD (2020) in Sociology with a focus on health and medicine. Dr. Andersen completed a Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) in the College of Medicine’s Office of Community Health and Research (OCHR).