Faculty Spotlight for May 2008
Name: Gregory Breeden
Title: Assistant Professor
Department: Public Health Sciences
What colleges did you attend as a student?
- PhD, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, August 2004
- Master of Public Health, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, August 1998
- Bachelor of Arts, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, August 1989
At which schools/colleges/universities have you taught/given lectures? I was a guest lecturer at Johns Hopkins and The University of Michigan Schools of Public Health.
What is the best thing about your job? Returning back home. I was raised in Bennettsville, SC.
Describe your current research interests and/or research projects. Broadly, I am interested in understanding discrimination, stress, and health, and in developing interventions to reduce racial and gender disparities in mental health. However, my primary research interests lie in exploring the inter-relations among perceived discrimination, mental health, gender and race over the life course among minority populations, and in determining whether racial and ethnic identity mediates or moderates these relationships. I especially want to design community-based interventions for African Americans with mental illness (e.g. depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety, etc.) who have no intentions of seeking treatment. As a social and behavioral scientist trained in public health, I approach my research from a psychosocial perspective. I believe that a person's health status is strongly related to the psychological value the individual assigns to social cues from others, which differs for men and women in terms of how the information is processed and interpreted and is context-driven. The research projects that have brought me to this understanding and that continue to guide my research are inter-related and fall broadly into one of three categories: (1) Discrimination and health, (2) Psycho-social Stress and Cardiovascular Disease, and (3) Psycho-social interventions to improve mental health. As a new faculty member, I am interested in collaborating with researchers who share my interests.
Please list your favorite(s).
• Hobby: Reading, writing, and travelling
• Book: Praise Song for the Widow
• Movie: Pulp Fiction
• Vacation destination: Cape Town, South Africa
• Music or musical genera: Jazz, Acoustic
• Previously owned vehicle: Honda Accord
• Influential person: Grandmother
• Person with whom you would like to have a conversation: Samuel L. Jackson
• Advice to give: To make a difference, you have to be different