Ken Resnicow, PhD

Ken Resnicow is the Irwin Rosenstock Professor of Health Behavior and Health Equity at University of Michigan School of Public Health and Professor of Pediatrics in the School of Medicine, the Associate Director for Community Engagement and Health Disparities Research at the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center, and Chief Scientific Lead at the University's Center for Health Communications Research. His work over the past 30 years has focused on designing and evaluating behavior change programs for a wide range of health behaviors including smoking cessation, weight control, diet and physical activity, effective parenting, medical adherence, cancer screening, organ donation, substance use and youth risk behaviors. Much of his work has involved ethnic/racial and underserved populations. Examples of prior studies include: Eat for Life, an NCI-funded church-based intervention to increase fruit and vegetable intake using Motivational Interviewing and culturally-tailored print/video; Healthy Body Healthy Spirit, an NHLBI-funded intervention to increase physical activity and fruit and vegetable intake among African Americans recruited through Black churches using MI and culturally-tailored print/video; GO GIRLS, an NHLBI-funded study to develop an obesity prevention program for overweight teens using MI; an NIH-funded study to prevent cigarette smoking among South African youth, an NIH-funded study, BMI2, to treat pediatric obesity using Motivational Interviewing working with the American Academy of Pediatrics; BMI3, an NIH study to disseminate the BMI2 program in pediatric practices; and DOT-funded studies in hair salons, churches, and Greek organizations to increase organ donation among African Americans. He has published over 300 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters and has served on numerous advisory panels and review groups. In 2019 he will join the NIH Council for the National Institute for Minority and Health Disparity Research.

In recent years, his work has increasingly entailed novel behavioral tailoring and the incorporation of e-Health technology to enhance the impact of health messages. Examples of these include; a culturally-tailored fruit and vegetable intervention for African Americans, a tailored colorectal cancer screening intervention for African Americans, a violence prevention App for high risk youth in Flint Michigan, weight loss and disease management Apps for members of Aetna Inc, and a smoking cessation App for pregnant smokers in Romania. He has also worked on several studies using community health workers, including current work in faith-based organizations domestically, and Cape Town South Africa and Sao Paulo, Brazil globally. Much of his work, both his interpersonal and electronic interventions, is based on Motivational Interviewing and is influenced by Chaos Theory and Self-Determination Theory.

He has collaborated with researchers in over 25 countries including; South Africa, Australia, Mexico, Brazil, Portugal, Romania, the Ukraine, and the Netherlands and has trained over 1000 health professionals in Motivational Interviewing in both academic and health care delivery settings.