CPRC

Jemima A. Frimpong is a health services researcher and management scientist with experience in health systems development, as well as in health programs evaluation and assessment.  The broad research interests of Dr. Frimpong are in the areas of health disparities in the United States, and health systems development and strengthening in developing countries.  Her research has focused on disparities and inequities in health and healthcare, inter/intra organizational processes and patient outcomes, social networks, and social stratification.  The former area include the examination of maternal and provider characteristics on immunization status of children, the impact of health status on use of complementary and alternative medicine, and systems level factors such as regulations on health care cost.  These works have informed and provided context for her research in developing countries.

On the global health landscape, she is interested in the development and sustainability of health systems in developing countries, as well as maternal and child health.  She has conducted research that examined childhood malnutrition in Ghana during the economic growth of the 1980s and 1990s, and attempted to identify the intermediate demographic and economic factors that may mediate the impact of economic growth on health.  She is involved in other projects examining trends in prevalence of malnutrition among children born to mothers engaged in the agricultural sector and those born to mothers engaged in the non-agricultural sector during economic growth of the 1980s and 1990s in Ghana.  Dr. Frimpong has also been involved in field research in Ghana and Malawi.  She has collected data on how willing and able parents are to pay for the Ghana National Health Insurance Program to access care for their children with chronic conditions, as well as field work in Likoma Island, Malawi, to assess gender differences in partnership concurrency and HIV spread using a sexual networks approach. 

Currently, she is working on a project that examines the feasibility, efficiency, and effectiveness of utilizing mobile phone technology as a tool for improving community health in a rural district in South-eastern Ghana.  Dr. Frimpong is committed to the translation of research into practice, and the application of knowledge gained from practice in informing research on health related matters in the U.S. and internationally.