Alexandra Adams, UW ICTR Assistant Director

Alexandra K. Adams, MD, PhD, is an Assistant Director of UW ICTR and also the Director of the Collaborative Center for Health Equity (CCHE), which is part of the ICTR core groups. Dr. Adams also currently practices at the UW Pediatric Fitness Clinic in Madison.

She completed her MD in 1994 and her PhD in Nutritional Sciences in 1997 at the University of Illinois College of Medicine, Urbana, IL. She completed her Family Medicine residency at the University of Wisconsin also in 1997. Her special interests include pediatric nutritional problems, obesity, metabolic syndrome, and indigenous diets and health.

Dr. Adams has been working in partnership with three Wisconsin Tribes and the Great Lakes Inter-Tribal Council Epi-Center for the past seven years on a variety of projects to examine and reduce the prevalence of pediatric obesity with the aim of reducing the risk of future cardiovascular disease and diabetes. A major current project is a family-based intervention to reduce obesity and cardiac risk factors in American Indian children — Healthy Children, Strong Families. The project is a randomized controlled trial examining the effect of a home visiting intervention on reducing metabolic risk and improving lifestyles in the children and their primary caregivers. This participatory research process is being used throughout all phases, so that community and academic researchers wok together on data collection, analysis, and dissemination.

Support for these projects comes from a Wisconsin Partnership Fund grant to the Great Lakes Inter-Tribal Council (GLITC), as well as a Native American Research Center for Health (GLNARCH) grant awarded to GLITC. Dr. Adams is the academic partner on both grants. In addition, she has had several NIH grants funding her research with a recent NIH U01 award.

Dr. Adams is an active member of the Governor's Council for Physical Fitness and Health, as well as of WIPAN, the statewide public health organization working for healthy lifestyles in Wisconsin. She feels that prevention of obesity in American Indian and other children at high risk for cardiovascular disease and diabetes is essential, and that prevention strategies in partnership with the community have the best chance for success.