Congratulations to former UNC WK Kellogg Health Scholar, Keon L. Gilbert who recently received a two-year, $100,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). Gilbert will use the grant to identify behaviors and practices that improve the health of African American men.
Gilbert completed his postdoctoral fellowship at the UNC Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention in 2010, and has since become an assistant professor at Saint Louis University’s College for Public Health and Social Justice.
The grant Gilbert received, New Connections: Increasing Diversity of RWJF Programming, is awarded to researchers in the early to mid stages of their career. The program brings together researchers from historically underrepresented groups across the United States.
“I am extremely proud to be among the junior investigators and mid-career consultants honored with this prestigious grant,” says Gilbert. “This award will connect me to a network of established experts in research and evaluation related to health and health care, while providing me with an opportunity to explore an understudied area of health disparities, and to establish a framework for understanding how to work with African American men to improve their access to and use of health care services and how to enhance health behaviors among individuals in this population.”
Gilbert said his focus on African American men’s health stemmed from his work with the Kellogg Health Scholars program.
“It opened my eyes to the unique and complex issues that African-American men face,” Gilbert said. “It fit with my interest in disease prevention and health promotion and gave me a specific group of people of focus on.”