Kimberly  Jacob Arriola

Kimberly Jacob Arriola, PhD, MPH is the Charles Howard Candler Professor of Behavioral, Social, and Health Education Sciences in the Rollins School of Public Health of Emory University, Vice Provost for Graduate Affairs, and Dean of the James T. Laney School of Graduate Studies of Emory University.  She earned an MA in 1996 and a PhD in 1998 from Northeastern University (both in Social Psychology), and she earned an MPH in 2001 from Emory University (in Epidemiology).  All of her work focuses on studying social and behavioral factors that impact the health of marginalized populations and communities of color.  She has two general lines of research.  First she has led the development, implementation, and evaluation of culturally-sensitive interventions to improve public commitment to organ and tissue donation among African Americans and interventions that improve access to transplantation among African American end stage renal disease patients.   Within this line of inquiry she currently leads an NIH U01 funded to mitigate against the impact of structural racism on racial disparities in access to chronic kidney disease treatment and care.  Second, she has led the implementation and evaluation of environmental and policy change interventions that improve access to cancer screening and treatment services among those who are underserved and underinsured.  In 2021-2022, she led a CDC-funded project to increase COVID-19 vaccine uptake in Southwest Georgia, with a focus on African American and rural residents.