Message from Dr. Alegria

Welcome letter from Margarita Alegría, PhD, Chief of the Disparities Research Unit at Mass General.

Current Research

The DRU generates innovative health and health services research that impacts policy, practice, and service delivery for multicultural populations. Learn about our current research.

Past Research

The DRU generates innovative health and health services research that impacts policy, practice, and service delivery for multicultural populations. Learn about our past research.

Publications

Research publications from the investigators of the Disparities Research Unit at Mass General.

Our Faculty and Staff

The DRU is a collaborative research practice of investigators, clinicians and community groups dedicated to research impacting policy, practice and service delivery for multicultural populations.

About the Disparities Research Unit

The DRU mission is to generate innovative mental health services research that impacts policy, practice and service delivery for multicultural populations.

Disparities Research Unit News

New Releases

Researchers from the Disparities Research Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital and Northeastern University issued a ‘roadmap’ for creating diverse and equitable graduate health programs. The research, published February 2024 in JAMA Health Forum, outlines 13 evidence-based strategies for advancing racial and ethnic equity in the academic health sciences.
Alegría M, Thurston IB, Cheng M, et al. A Learning Assessment to Increase Diversity in Academic Health Sciences. JAMA Health Forum. 2024;5(2):e235412. doi:10.1001/jamahealthforum.2023.5412
Learn more about the project.

Alegría M, Cruz-Gonzalez M, Yip T, Wang L, Park IJK, Fukuda M, Valentino K, Giraldo-Santiago N, Zhen-Duan J, Alvarez K, Barrutia XA, Shrout PE, Yearly and Daily Discrimination-Related Stressors and Mexican Youth’s Mental Health and Sleep: Insights From the First Wave of a Three-Wave Family Study, Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry (2024), doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2023.12.010.

Alegría M., Cruz-Gonzalez, M., Markle, S. L., Falgas-Bague, I., Poindexter, C., Stein, G. L., Eddington, K., Martinez Vargas, A. E., Fuentes, L., Cheng, M., & Shrout, P. E. (2023). Referrals to Community and State Agencies to Address Social Determinants of Health for Improving Mental Health, Functioning, and Quality of Care Outcomes for Diverse Adults: North Carolina and Massachusetts, September 2019–January 2023. American Journal of Public Health, e1–e11. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2023.307442

Alegría, M., O’Malley, I. S., Smith, R., Useche Rosania, A., Boyd, A., Cuervo-Torello, F., Williams, D. R., & Acevedo-Garcia, D. (2023). Addressing health inequities for children in immigrant families: Psychologists as leaders and links across systems. American Psychologist, 78(2), 173–185. PMCID: PMC10071405.

Alegría, M., Alvarez, K., Cheng, M., & Falgas Bague, I. (2023). Recent Advances on Social Determinants of Mental Health: Looking Fast Forward. American Journal of Psychiatry, 180(7), 473-382. doi: 10.1176/appi.ajp.20230371.

Awards and Recognition

Dr. Alegria received the 2022 Inclusive Voices Award from the American Association for Public Opinion Research at the 77th Annual Conference in Chicago in May 2022. She accepted the award on behalf of her collaborators for their groundbreaking work on the National Latino and Asian American (NLAAS) study.

The Mongan Institute

The Disparities Research Unit is a Mongan Institute research center. The Mongan Institute at Mass General is dedicated to supporting research in the areas of population and health care sciences.