Y. Alicia Hong, PhD
School of Public Health
Texas A&M Health Science Center
Research Interests and Accomplishments
Dr. Y. Alicia Hong is an associate professor in the Department of Health Promotion and Community Health Sciences, School of Public Health, Texas A&M University. Her research interests include: (a) design and evaluate behavioral intervention programs for under-served populations, especially in HIV/STI risk reduction and cancer survivorship; (d) develop and validate culturally-appropriate scales and instruments for health outcome measurements, especially in under-served populations or global health settings; and (c) develop and evaluate mHealth or eHealth programs. Dr. Hong has worked with women at risk of HIV, migrant workers, AIDS orphans, Asian and Latino immigrants, and cancer survivors.
Dr. Hong is a public health professional specialized in social and behavioral intervention, particularly interested in applying mobile tools to promote well-being of vulnerable or underserved populations. She was trained in medical anthropology and public health, giving her the skills to apply both qualitative and quantitative methods to her research. Over the past 12 year, Dr. Hong has participated in 8 federally-funded research projects and served as PI in 4 other grants. She has published more than 60 peer-reviewed journal articles, including 25 as the first author.
Over the past 7 years, she collaborated with Baylor Scott & White (BS&W) to study the barriers and facilitators to promote healthy living for obese and diabetic patients. Her team identified individual factors such as self-efficacy and motivation as well as social environmental factors such as communication with providers as critical in patients’ adherence to health living. She also was part of the team to pilot-test using mobile tools to promote patient-physician communication and behavioral change. Recently, Dr. Hong led a multidisciplinary team of professionals in public health, nursing, medicine, and engineering, in partnership with BS&W and Central Texas Cancer Prevention and Control Research Network, to develop and test iCanFit, a mobile-enabled web application to promote physical activity for older cancer survivors.
Quote from Dr. Hong
“The Judy K. Black award was an important recognition for me at the early stage of my career. It motivated a young public health professional to become a high-quality scholar and serve as role model for fellow young researcher in the field.”
