From Pandemic Response to Cancer Prevention: Lessons from a Longstanding CBPR Partnership with People Experiencing Homelessness

Please join AAHB’s Professional Development and Mentoring Council  (PDMC) for the second speaker in our annual webinar series. This year's series aligns with the focus of AAHB's upcoming Annual Conference, which will be held in Austin, TX, from March 29-April 1, 2026. The theme of this year's conference is "Centering Community in Health Behavior Research and Practice" (conference link: https://aahb.org/2026-Scientific-Meeting-Overview/). Our second PDMC webinar session will be held on on Wednesday,  February 11, 2026, 4:00pm – 5:00pm (EST).

This webinar, hosted by the American Academy of Health Behavior, will describe the development of a community–academic partnership with people experiencing homelessness that began as a community-based participatory research (CBPR) effort to support COVID-19 response and infectious disease preparedness. I will reflect on how centering lived experience during a public health crisis built trust, shaped research priorities, and created the foundation for sustained collaboration. Drawing on this trajectory, I will highlight how this partnership led to new research directions, with a focus on our recent work bringing cervical cancer screening to a homeless shelter. The talk will discuss challenges and successes in conducting community-centered health behavior research in homelessness settings and offer lessons for building partnerships that endure beyond a single funding opportunity or health crisis.

This session will be led by Dr. Natalia Rodrigues, Associate Professor of Public Health and Biomedical Engineering at Purdue University, and Associate Member of the Indiana University Simon Comprehensive Cancer Center. In 2019, she started the Health TechQuity Lab, an interdisciplinary research group focused on the design and implementation of rapid diagnostic tests to address health disparities. By meaningfully engaging underserved communities in translational science, her lab employs participatory methodologies to increase adoption of technological innovation, empower community health workforces, and improve health outcomes for vulnerable populations.