Essentials of Public Health Research Methods

Richard A. Crosby, PhD, is an endowed professor of public health at the University of Kentucky. Dr. Crosby’s research has been highly focused on promoting condom use for populations most at-risk of HIV/STD acquisition, e.g., young minority men who have sex with men; low-income minority women; transgender women having sex with men. Dr. Crosby has been consistently funded by the National Institutes of Health and by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In recent years his research has expanded to include work with sexual and gender minority youth pertaining to food security; low-income rural women at elevated risk of cervical cancer; and pregnancy prevention among young minority males residing in urban foster care facilities. Having published well over 400 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, Dr. Crosby’s current passion lies in writing textbooks that greatly aid the teaching-learning process for students who have dedicated their careers to public health practice and research.'Laura F. Salazar, PhD is a Professor and Director of the PhD Program at Georgia State University’s School of Public Health. Dr. Salazar’s research has been devoted to helping prevent and ameliorate violence against women and HIV/AIDS. Her research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and focuses on u understanding the etiologic mechanisms underlying HIV/AIDS and violence and developing public health interventions that target those mechanisms. Her intervention approaches include the use of educational entertainment in the form of serial drama episodes, social media marketing and web-based approaches to expand the reach of public health efforts. Most recently, Dr. Salazar's research has expanded to focus on understanding the determinants of mental and physical health disparities experienced by sexual and gender minorities with an emphasis on contextual and structural-level factors. Dr. Salazar has published over one 150 journal articles in medical, public health and social science journals and is the author of over thirty book chapters and coauthor of four other public health textbooks. Dr. Salazar teaches advanced research methods and intervention development and evaluation for public health.