Assistant Professor of Health and Nutrition Sciences Margrethe Horlyck-Romanovsky from the School of Natural and Behavioral Sciences was awarded a $1.1 million contract from the National Institute for Minority Health and Health Disparities for the Brooklyn Immigrant Health Lab to launch the “New York City Ghanaian Immigrant Mental Health and Wellbeing Project.” The three-year, community-based participatory research project will collaborate with Ghanaian immigrant communities across the five boroughs to gather data that will inform and test mental health and well-being interventions in these communities. The program leadership team consists of Horlyck-Romanovsky, also the director of the Brooklyn College Immigration Health Lab; Ramatu Ahmed, founder and executive director of the African Life Center; and Dr. Adeyinka M. Akinsulure-Smith, psychologist and professor from the City College of New York and the Graduate Center, CUNY. The goal of the project is to build on Horlyck-Romanovsky’s work as a public health professional who is committed to addressing intra-ethnic health disparities among populations of African descent—is to explore how the Ghanaian communities in New York experience life and the challenges they face as immigrants, and provide access to culturally relevant coping strategies and mental health care services in their communities. The grant adds to Horlyck-Romanovsky’s recent awards and work, which include winning two PSC-CUNY Grants and a 2022 CUNY Interdisciplinary Research Grant for community-based participatory diabetes prevention projects, having 19 manuscripts published in peer-reviewed journals, and editing three clinical nutrition textbook chapters in collaboration with Brooklyn College graduate nutrition students.
