PhD University of Pittsburgh: Anthropology
MPH University of Pittsburgh: Behavioral and Community Health Sciences
Chelsea Wentworth is an assistant professor in the Office of Medical Education Research and Development (OMERAD). Wentworth is a feminist community-engaged researcher focused on developing research products that can impact public policy change and examining factors that impact health equity among families. Wentworth’s focus on improving community-engaged praxis support the work of OMERAD and CHM faculty who are similarly working to improve patient/provider/community interactions, and improve cultural competency and health equity. Wentworth provides support for medical students and faculty seeking to engage in research partnerships, support for community-engaged research activities, innovative qualitative methods, and those interested in global health. She also supports faculty and students in research dissemination efforts aimed to reach community members and policy makers.
Scholarly Work
Wentworth’s research examines hunger and food security, patient/provider communications, and the social determinants that impact health outcomes for children and their families. Currently, she is engaged with several projects. Her long-term ethnographic research takes place in the South Pacific in Port Vila, Vanuatu. Since 2009, Dr. Wentworth’s work has focused on issues of infant and young child feeding practice, disaster response, and childhood malnutrition in collaboration with the Vanuatu Ministry of Health. Additionally, Wentworth collaborates with the Intertribal Council of Michigan and researchers at MSU studying Indigenous foodways and developing early childhood curriculum that promote Native language and food traditions. Recently, she also co-led the Flint Leverage Points Project, a community-research partnership with the Community Foundation of Greater Flint. Here Wentworth contributed to research that mapped the Flint food system to identify leverage points to improve food security and partnered with community members to identify actionable pathways toward food system change.
Areas of Interest
Emphasis on feminist community-engaged research praxis and understanding food access through a systems-based approach run through Dr. Wentworth’s international and US based research. These projects have broader applications in the fields of gender, health, and public policy as governments and health care practitioners work to improve health outcomes for communities. Dr. Wentworth’s work has been funded by the US Fulbright Program, the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research within the USDA, the Michigan Health Endowment Fund, and the Hewlett Foundation. Her publications appear in a variety of interdisciplinary outlets including Social Politics, Ecology and Society, International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, Anthropological Forum, and Medical Anthropology.
