Eugenia Eng
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Professor, Department of Health Behavior, Gillings School of Global Public Health
Biographical Abstracts
Eugenia Eng's community-based participatory research (CBPR) work is recognized nationally and internationally. Contributions include relevance and measurement of the concept of community competence, the lay health advisor (LHA) intervention model, and Action-Oriented Community Diagnosis. Her more than 100 publications have been cited almost 4,500 times, more than 2,200 since 2009.
Notable Achievements
Over her 30-year career, Eugenia Eng has set the bar for exemplary community engaged scholarship. Her work has met the highest academic standards, helping to establish community-based participatory research (CBPR) in addressing an array of health issues in a diverse range of communities. Although her achievements go beyond those focused on one institution, this section will focus Dr. Eng as a teacher, mentor and researcher at UNC. In the 19 years she directed the Masters of Public Health program in Health Behavior, she taught more than 1000 students who worked in more than 300 communities in North Carolina, learning about social networks and building on strengths and assets to address issues the communities identified.
There are well-prepared engaged faculty members in academic settings across the nation who benefitted from the experience and guidance of Eugenia Eng, whether as her doctoral advisees or a postdoc as a Kellogg Community Health Scholars, a program she directed for 14 years. Through authoring 87 peer-reviewed articles, 19 books or book chapters and 13 monographs, Dr. Eng has disseminated her research findings in the traditional ways. Importantly, her efforts have also influenced policy. In the mid-1990's the UNC School of Public Health revised promotion and tenure guidelines to encompass practice, and a faculty position was created to serve half time in the community. More recently, her work has led to special Institutional Review Board (IRB) guidelines and processes that allow for community partners to serve as qualified researchers in CBPR efforts.