Biography

Suzanne B Cashman, ScD, Professor of Family Medicine and Community Health and Director of Community Health in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, is trained as a health services researcher and evaluator. Dr. Cashman has spent the thirty-five years of her professional career teaching graduate public and community health courses and developing curriculum for medical and public health students and residents, conducting community-based evaluation research, and developing partnerships aimed at helping communities improve their health status. With secondary appointments in the Department of Quantitative Health Sciences and in the Graduate School of Nursing, Dr. Cashman is also faculty for the University’s Preventive Medicine Residency. When Dr. Cashman joined the UMMS faculty in 1999, she co-led a state supported initiative to develop and evaluate interprofessional health care delivery teams in community health centers. Recently, she has been applying knowledge gained from her years of experience functioning as a bridge between the community and the academy to the development and evaluation of community-responsive health improvement initiatives. A common thread running through these initiatives is developing and using partnership principles as the basis for carrying out a community-based participatory research approach to research.

Prior to coming to UMMS, Dr. Cashman served as a faculty member in the Department of Health Services at Boston University ’s School of Public Health. In addition, she spent nine years developing and nurturing a community-oriented primary care (COPC) focused interprofessional preventive medicine fellowship in Boston, MA. Funded by the WKKellogg Foundation through its urban COPC national demonstration initiative, this project provided the foundation for creating the Center for Community-Responsive Care. It used the preventive medicine training template to launch a multi-professional training program aimed at reaching participants skills that would help them work collaboratively with communities to improve health.

Currently, Dr. Cashman is Co-Director of the UMMS Center for Clinical and Translational Science Community Engagement and Research component and is an investigator for the schools’ CDC funded Worcester County Prevention Research Center as well as leading the UMass Worcester campus’s Learn and Service initiative funded by the Corporation for National and Community Service. In addition, she provides evaluation assistance to the statewide Area Health Education Center Network; to a CDC funded Center for Excellence in Eliminating Disparities in Lawrence, Massachusetts; and a Health Resources and Services Administration funded oral health case manager project for HIV positive patients. Dr. Cashman is a founding member of Worcester ’s Common Pathways healthy communities coalition and is a member of its Steering Committee and indicators work group. She has served as a leader for the past eight years in the Association for Prevention Teaching and Research and has been a Senior Consultant for Community-Campus Partnerships for Health (CCPH) since 2003. Dr. Cashman was recently elected to join the CCPH board where she will continue to advance efforts to bridge community and academia.

Education Sc.D 1980 Health Services Research and Administration       Harvard University School of Public Health M.S.  1974 Human Ecology  Cornell University B.A. 1969  History Tufts University

Click here to view Dr. Cashman's curriculum vitae

Current Positions

Director of Community Health (2004-present)
Co-Director, Determinants of Health Course
Co-Director, UMCTTS Community Engagement
Faculty, Preventive Medicine Residency and Fellowship (2000-present)
Co-Director, Rural Health Scholars Program (2000-present)
Co-Director, Summer Service-Learning Student Assistantships (2002-present)
Population Health Clerkship Group Leader (1999-present)
UMMS Admissions Interviewer (1999-present)
Evaluation Consultant, MassHealth Access Program (1997-2007) and State Area
 Health Education Center (2003-present)

Affiliations

American Public Health Association
Association for Prevention and Teaching Research
Community Campus Partnerships for Health
Common Pathways, Worcester's Healthy Communities Collaborative
New England Rural Health Roundtable
Society of Teachers of Family Medicine

Scholarly Activity

Teaching:

MPH: Introduction to the US Health Care System
Residency: Community Health Block
Preventive Medicine Residency/Fellowship
Undergraduate medical:  
Determinants of Health course co-leader
Rural Health Scholars Pathway
Optional Enrichment Elective: Understanding and Improving the US Healthcare System
Population Health Clerkship Steering Committee and group leader   

Research:

Effect of a health promotion intervention among refugees from Burma
Effect of open access and access with modest monthly pay for patients from an FQHC 

Workforce:
30 years of family medicine residency: graduates’ community involvement and location decisions
Visiting specialist model for rural/small town residents in MA
Recruitment and retention of primary care providers in rural MA

Evaluation:
Teen Tot Connections, MassHealth Access Program, New England Latino CEED, Healthy Tomorrows  

Service:
Board member, Community-Campus Partnerships for Health (2011-present)
Steering Committee and Indicators Workgroup, Common Pathways (2003-present)
YWCA Healthy Weight Now Coalition member (2008-present)
Policy work group, Community-Based Public Health Caucus, APHA (2002-present)
UMMS applicant interviewer (1999-present)
Board member, Association for Prevention Teaching and Research (2002-2010)