Dr. Margaret McGladrey, PhD

Assistant Professor

Margaret McGladrey, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the UK College of Public Health Department of Health Management and Policy and the Principal Investigator of the precision public health alliance. She specializes in mixed-methods participatory health research, quality improvement and program evaluation, and implementation practice and research to study and address the social determinants of health. This community-engaged research involves cross-system coordination with diverse organizations – many located in rural Kentucky – including local public health, behavioral health, child welfare, criminal-legal system, education, social services, advocacy, and arts and culture agencies and people with lived experience receiving their services.

In 2018-19, Dr. McGladrey was a postdoctoral scholar of civic studies with the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life and Department of Sociology at Tufts University before joining the child welfare nonprofit Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) at the local and state levels in Kentucky and leading direct service, community outreach, evaluation, and capacity-building activities. In 2020, she began a position as the Project Director and now is faculty co-lead for the Criminal Legal System Team of the NIH- and Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration-funded HCS-Kentucky. This role involves working with state-level agency leadership and the local-level staff of courts and Department of Corrections as well as county-specific coalitions that identify high-risk populations in their areas to implement evidence-based practices to reduce opioid overdose deaths.

She also is the Kentucky site lead for the HCS Photovoice project, designing and facilitating this participatory action research method with 10 different groups in coordination with the Massachusetts and Ohio HCS sites. Partnerships formed during the HCS Photovoice project led to the Clark County Health Department contracting with Dr. McGladrey and her students to facilitate Photovoice to inform their 2022-23 community health assessment and community health improvement processes. From 2022-23, Dr. McGladrey was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mental Health Law and Policy at the University of South Florida (USF), where she originated the Voices of Behavioral Health Lab. Dr. McGladrey and her lab students received four grants and contracts with local nonprofits and the USF campus to conduct Photovoice needs assessments on behavioral health issues, develop a re-entry coalition to collaboratively evaluate outcomes of a circuit-wide navigator program, and assess a trauma-informed treatment approach for a residential program for people with dual diagnoses. She is leading the Lexington-Fayette County Health Department's current Community Health Improvement Planning initiative using the Photovoice method and design thinking to facilitate strategic planning to address behavioral health issues.