Overview
Associate Professor, School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences
Affiliated Faculty, Department of Integrated Systems Engineering (ISE)
Email: maria.brunette@osumc.edu
Phone: (614) 685-0896
Primary Professional Areas of Interest
- Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR)
- Health Equity
- Human Factors Engineering
- Global Public Health
- Social Determinants of Health
- Sociotechnical Systems
Research Focus
With a background in industrial and systems engineering my health sciences research includes four primary areas: 1) Designing well-functioning and culturally-relevant health systems to reach marginalized and resource-poor working communities; 2) Redesigning healthcare processes and workflows with continuous improvement tools and participatory approaches; 3) Strengthening health systems via equitable collaborations with local community stakeholders -primarily in urban poor communities; and 4) Designing effective programs to reduce occupational health disparities among migrant workers in the Americas region (North/Central/South).
I use and have adapted the Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) approach -facilitating community-engaged research that is respectful of the complex social, economic, and cultural context of vulnerable, voiceless populations often found in Low and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs).
Funding
Dr. Brunette is currently funded by an interagency program at the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) Research Training Program. Previous funding has been provided by the National Institute of Occupational Health and Safety (NIOSH), the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA), the Center to Protect Workers Right (CWPR), the UMASS Medical School Office of Global Health, and the UMASS Institute of Asian American Studies.
Community and International Work
- United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD)
- World Health Organization, Workers Health Division
- United Nations Global Compact for Migration
- OXFAM America
- Laborers' International Union of North America, LIUNA Local 175
- Massachusetts Department of Public Health
- Ohio History Connection
- The Ohio Institute of Communities of Color
- Peruvian Labor Department
- Peruvian National Tuberculosis Program
- Socios en Salud (Partners in Health), Perú
- Colegio Franklin Delano Roosevelt, The American School of Lima, Perú
Courses
HTHRHSC 4590: Global Health Inequalities (General Education)
Recent Publications
Chavez, L., Ugarte-Gil, C., Brunette, M. (2022). Empowering community health workers via health equity research training in TB prevention and control. The Union World Conference on Lung Health, November 8-11, 2022.
Griffin, T.; Chen, Q; Sun, X; Wang, D; Brunette, MJ; Cao, Y.; Liu, B. (2022). eRxNet: A Pipeline of Convolutional Neural Networks for Tuberculosis Screening. International Journal of Semantic Computing VOL. 16, NO. 01; https://doi.org/10.1142/S1793351X22400049
Maria Brunette (2021) Moving the needle on global health equity: a look back from 2030, Archives of Environmental & Occupational Health, 76:3, 121-122, DOI: 10.1080/19338244.2021.1892922
Griffin, T.; Cao, Y.; Liu, B.; Sun, X. Brunette MJ. (2021) Object Detection and Instance Segmentation in Chest X-rays for Tuberculosis Screening. International Journal of Transdisciplinary AI; Vol. 3, No. 1 (2021) 1-24
Curioso WH, Brunette MJ. (2020) Inteligencia artificial e innovación para optimizar el proceso de diagnóstico de la tuberculosis (Artificial Intelligence and Innovation to Optimize TB Diagnostic Process) Rev Peru Med Exp Salud Publica. 2020;37(3). doi: https://doi.org/10.17843/rpmesp.2020.373.5585
Ugarte-Gil, C; Icochea, M; Llontop Otero, J; Villaizan, K; Young, N; Cao, Y; Liu, B; Griffin, T; Brunette, M. (2020). Implementing a socio-technical system for computer-aided tuberculosis diagnosis in Peru: A field trial among health professionals in resource-constraint settings. Health Informatics Journal, https://doi.org/10.1177/1460458220938535
Alcantara, M; Cao, L; Liu, B. Liu, C; Zhang, N; Zhangb, P; Griffin, T; Curioso, W; Ugarte-Gil, C; Brunette, MJ (2020). eRx – A technological advance to speed-up TB diagnostics, Smart Health, Vol 16, May 2020; , https://doi.org/10.1016/j.smhl.2020.100117
Moure-Eraso, R. and Brunette, MJ (2017). Employment Conditions as a Social Determinant of Health in Latino Populations: Policy Interventions Using the WHO Social Determinants Model. In: Leong, F; Eggerth, D; Chang, D; Flynn, M; Ford, K. and Martinez, R. (Eds.). "Occupational Health Disparities among Racial and Ethnic Minorities: Formulating Research Needs and Directions”. American Psychological Association (APA), http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0000021-003
Honors and Awards
“Grand Challenges 2020”, University of Massachusetts Lowell Office of the Chancellor: Transformational Education Grant: A Global Health Research Experience for Underrepresented Public Health Students; November 2015
Conference Travel Grant from University of Wisconsin-Madison Industrial Engineering Department to attend United Nations Conference “Geneva 2000: The Next Step for Social Development”; 2000
Education
- Ph D: Industrial and Systems Engineering, (2002), University of Wisconsin Madison - Madison, WI
Supporting Area: Human Factors Engineering
Dissertation/Thesis Title: Working Conditions in Peru: A Survey Study of Workers' Perceptions in an Industrially Developing Country - MSc: Industrial Engineering, (1999), University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez - Mayagüez, Puerto Rico
Supporting Area: Cellular Manufacturing Systems
Dissertation/Thesis Title: A Capacity-Driven Clustering Algorithm for Family Formation - BSc: Industrial Engineering, (1992), Universty of Lima - Lima, Peru
Dissertation/Thesis Title: Thesis: A Feasibility Study to Develop and Implement a Manufacturing Plant of Garlic (Allium sativum), Caigua (Cyclanthera pedata) & Hercampuri Gentianella Alborocea) Gelatine Caps
Appointments
Archives of Environmental & Occupational Health
Deputy Editor-in-Chief