Giselle Corbie-Smith

Dr. Corbie-Smith’s research interests are focused on minority health issues, especially access to care and the influence of culture, race, ethnicity, and social class on health. In addition, her clinical work is focused on serving underserved populations in public hospitals or clinics. She currently maintains a clinical practice at a local community health center. Since joining the faculty at UNC in 2000, she has continued her research on barriers to minority participation in research. Her work focuses on trust and distrust as it impacts participation in research among minorities and the methodological and ethical issues involved in the inclusion of minorities in research. As principal investigator of the LeARN Study, Dr. Corbie-Smith is examining research participants’ attitudes about participating in genetic research across the state of North Carolina. She is currently the Principal Investigator on grants from the National Institutes of Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to examine the patient-specific and investigator-specific factors that influence participation in clinical research. She is also Director of the Minority Research Core of the Carolina-Shaw Partnership for the Elimination of Health Disparities (Project Connect). The Core’s main goal is to build community-academic relationships to increase minority participation in research. Dr. Corbie-Smith is also Director of the Program on Health Disparities at UNC’s Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research. The purpose of this program is to coordinate and enhance disparity research within the Sheps Center and throughout UNC, to build expertise in working with minority communities, and to improve collaboration and communication with minority-serving institutions in North Carolina and the nation.




					Dr. Corbie-Smith’s research interests are focused on minority health issues, especially access to care and the influence of culture, race, ethnicity, and social class on health. In addition, her clinical work is focused on serving underserved populations in public hospitals or clinics. She currently maintains a clinical practice at a local community health center. Since joining the faculty at UNC in 2000, she has continued her research on barriers to minority participation in research. Her work focuses on trust and distrust as it impacts participation in research among minorities and the methodological and ethical issues involved in the inclusion of minorities in research. As principal investigator of the LeARN Study, Dr. Corbie-Smith is examining research participants’ attitudes about participating in genetic research across the state of North Carolina. She is currently the Principal Investigator on grants from the National Institutes of Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to examine the patient-specific and investigator-specific factors that influence participation in clinical research. She is also Director of the Minority Research Core of the Carolina-Shaw Partnership for the Elimination of Health Disparities (Project Connect). The Core’s main goal is to build community-academic relationships to increase minority participation in research. Dr. Corbie-Smith is also Director of the Program on Health Disparities at UNC’s Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research. The purpose of this program is to coordinate and enhance disparity research within the Sheps Center and throughout UNC, to build expertise in working with minority communities, and to improve collaboration and communication with minority-serving institutions in North Carolina and the nation. Along with a number of other CCGS faculty, Corbie-Smith is also an investigator on the recently awarded Center for Excellence in ELSI Research (CEER) planning grant. This two-year grant will examine the ELSI issues arising in three unique projects at UNC-CH that involve large-sample gene discovery and disclosure. The goals are to develop an infrastructure to maximize collaborative research, create partnerships with relevant constituencies, identify critical issues, and collect sufficient pilot data to propose a well-integrated center in which state-of-the-art ELSI research can be conducted to inform public policy. More information about this effort can be found here. Selected Publications: Sterling R, Henderson GE, Corbie-Smith G. (2006) Public willingness to participate in and public opinions about genetic variation research: a review of the literature. Am J Public Health. 96:1971-8. Cherrington A, Ayala GX, Sleath B, Corbie-Smith G. (2006) Examining knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about depression among Latino adults with type 2 diabetes. Diabetes Educ. 32:603-13. Corbie-Smith GM, Durant RW, St George DM. (2006) Investigators' assessment of NIH mandated inclusion of women and minorities in research. Contemp Clin Trials. 27:571-9. Bussey-Jones J, Genao I, St George DM, Corbie-Smith G. (2005) The meaning of race: use of race in the clinical setting. J Lab Clin Med. 146:205-9. Corbie-Smith GM. (2004) Minority recruitment and participation in health research. NC Med J. 65:385-7. Corbie-Smith G, Moody-Ayers S and Thrasher A (2004) Closing the circle: minority inclusion in research and reduction of health disparities. Arch Intern Med. 164:1362-1364. back to top


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