0%
Dr. Taona Haderlein is a research investigator at OCHIN and has been with the organization since 2024. A clinical psychologist by training, Taona leverages data science and informatics tools to study health equity, care coordination, and their intersection within the digital health context. She has secured federal funding to examine digital health use and experiences among minoritized populations. Currently, she is studying participatory AI-based methods for measuring and improving care coordination in these populations. Aligned with this work, Taona is focused on enhancing digital health accessibility. She also serves as the program director for Innovation for Equity in Low-Resource Settings, an AIM-AHEAD Consortium funding initiative that focuses on piloting AI and machine learning innovations in clinical settings serving community health centers and NIH-disparity populations.
Remotely delivered digital health care is a convenient, cost-effective strategy. Taona’s work in this area has examined digital health use, experiences, and effectiveness. Recently, she led a study examining video visit and app use among chronic pain patients. Another paper she first-authored summarized findings from the VA Virtual Care State of the Art Conference’s Engagement Workgroup, which she facilitated on behalf of the VA Office of Connected Care. Taona has also first-authored studies examining associations between virtual care delivery, same-day access to integrated primary care-mental health clinics, and use of subsequent specialty mental health care.
The COVID-19 pandemic brought longstanding health disparities to the forefront. Taona’s research has involved the analysis of national datasets to examine temporal changes and between-group differences in health care utilization during COVID-19. For example, she led a study reporting lower VA COVID-19 vaccination rates among American Indian or Alaska Native (AIAN) veterans compared to white veterans; however, this difference was found only for AIANs living near an Indian Health Service (IHS) facility, illustrating potential use of IHS as a preferred health care organization. In another paper she first-authored, Taona found that, despite previous research indicating higher vaccination barriers among patients with serious mental illness, COVID-19 vaccination rates within the VA were similar for people with and without serious mental illness. She also led a paper that found higher rates of COVID-19 testing but lower COVID-19 test positivity among patients diagnosed with PTSD.
Racial and ethnic minority groups are susceptible to psychosocial stress from myriad factors, including ongoing systemic racism. To investigate this issue, Taona led a paper examining associations between perceived discrimination and depressive symptoms, as well as poor academic functioning, among young Latinos and Latinas. She found that perceived discrimination is a significant predictor of depression and poor academic functioning, and that relinquished control, which is conceptualized as a facet of learned helplessness, mediates these associations. Another study she led examined racial differences in perceived weight and attractiveness. The results indicated that while weight and self-perceived attractiveness are significantly associated for white women, Black women place less emphasis on weight in evaluating their own attractiveness. This study provided support for emphasizing factors other than appearance when addressing health behavior change in Black populations.
Taona’s research in this area focused on examining interrelations between psychosocial aspects of substance use behaviors. She co-authored manuscripts examining correlates of substance abuse. One such study found that marijuana use is associated with perceived peer and parent behavioral norms. She also contributed to the development of a measure assessing motives for pre-partying, i.e., drinking in anticipation of social events.
OCHIN Connections is a monthly newsletter featuring the latest OCHIN news and perspectives supporting our mission to drive health equity.