Stephenie C. Lemon, PhD, MS

Milagros C. Rosal, PhD, MS

Welcome to the Prevention Research Center at UMass Chan Medical School! Since 2009, we have been proud to be a member of the Prevention Research Center (PRC) network funded by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This national network consists of 20 academic research centers that use a community partnered approach to research ways to prevent or manage chronic illness and optimize health. Each PRC conducts one main research study in partnership with interested persons and groups in the community.

We are completing our core research project, BP Control which is conducted in partnership with two local community health centers and focuses on improving hypertension control among patients. We are excited to announce our new core research project, Neighborhood Connect. Neighborhood Connect is an applied public health research project that seeks to build community capacity so that residents and neighborhood organizations can work to make their neighborhoods better for walking, biking, and rolling. This project is conducted with the City of Worcester Division of Public Health, the Coalition for a Healthy Greater Worcester, and Walk Massachusetts. We also lead and host multiple Special Interest Projects, including the Physical Activity Policy and Evaluation Network (PAPREN), the revision of the Building Resilience Against Climate Effects (BRACE) Framework, and our newest addition, the Advancing Research in Immunization Services (ARISe) Center for Rural Vaccination Collaborating Center.