social justice & health equity

Dustin Duncan Research Foundation

Our Vision: We envision a world where minoritized and marginalized populations, communities, cultures are afforded the same opportunities and achieve the same outcomes as their peers, and are no longer held behind by systemic, historical or institutional barriers. The Dustin Duncan Research Foundation is dedicated to breaking down barriers, stigmas and prejudices through research, education and service by, for, and in conversation with
historically underresourced and marginalized communities.

A family research foundation, The Dustin Duncan Research Foundation’s singular focus is achieving equity for minoritized and marginalized populations, communities, cultures through social justice and health equity research. This population is uniquely affected by traumas inherited as a result of historically higher rates of poverty, and disparate physical and mental health outcomes compared to peer cohorts. Success will be measured by the qualitative and quantitative improvements our evidence-based policy changes have on the lives of minoritized and marginalized populations, communities, cultures, leveraging Harlem, New York, United States of America as a testing ground for
broader application across the United States and globe.

Our focus centers on two primary issues related to:

1. Social Justice, including discrimination, harassment, bullying, trauma, stigma, shame and resilience online and off-line

2. Health Equity, including mental health and related burdens including psychological distress, depression, anxiety, suicidality, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and self-harm.

Our action-oriented research portfolio will lead to the development of evidence-based policy changes that will ultimately improve the lives of all marginalized populations and communities. Join us in breaking the chains of history and empower future generations of minoritized and marginalized populations, communities, cultures.

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Research Education & Services

Research: Initially, in Fall 2025, we are planning to provide small research grants ($5,000-$15,000) to graduate students to fund research in two primary areas related to social justice and health equity; namely 1) discrimination, harassment, bullying, trauma, stigma; and 2) mental health and related burdens, including psychological distress, anxiety, suicidality, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and self-harm. The target group for these research studies will be minoritized and marginalized populations, communities, cultures. We will provide larger grants including $100,000-200,000 grants.

Education: After our research is set, we will build a school in Harlem, New York. We are dedicated to educating marginalized communities and promote positive images and cross-cultural communication, in line with the Jamaican national motto ‘Out of Many One People,’ our motto is “One Love” – which is a Jamaica expression of unity and inclusion, recognizing, celebrating, and embarrassing the richness, of diversity, like the beautiful landscape of nature.

Service: In addition to our research and education initiatives, we will focus on various projects related to our mission. This including designing a mentoring program in Harlem for minoritized and marginalized communities, and also building homes in East Africa. These are the initial programs that our Board of Advisors will review and approve—including luminaires in the field such as Dr. David Williams, Professor of Public Health at Harvard University.

Dustin T. Duncan, ScD

Founder | dd3018@columbia.edu

Dustin T. Duncan, ScD is Founder of the Dustin Duncan Research Foundation. Dr. Duncan’s work appears in leading public health, epidemiology, medical, geography, criminology, demography, and psychology journals. Working in collaboration with scholars across the world, he has over 200 high-impact articles (>120 first or senior-authored), book chapters and books cited over 8,750 times; his research has appeared in major media outlets including U.S. News & World Report, The Washington Post, The New York Times and CNN. Dr. Duncan’s work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the HIV Prevention Trials Network, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Verizon Foundation, and the Aetna Foundation.

Founder

Dustin T. Duncan, ScD is Founder of the Dustin Duncan Research Foundation. He is also the Associate Dean for Health Equity Research and Professor of Epidemiology at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.

Dr. Duncan is an internationally recognized Social and Spatial Epidemiologist.

Global Thought Leader

Dr. Duncan is a sought-after global thought leader and innovative researcher. His pioneering research broadly seeks to understand how social and contextual factors especially neighborhood characteristics influence population health among marginalized communities. Dr. Duncan’s intersectional and health equity-based research focuses on gay, bisexual and other sexually minoritized men and transgender people of color across the African diaspora including in the U.S., Caribbean and Africa.

Award-Winning Leader

Dr. Duncan is an award-winning leader who has received scientific contribution, mentoring and leadership awards including from the National Academy of Medicine (NAM), the Harvard University T.H. Chan School of Public Health (HSPH) and the Interdisciplinary Association for Population Health Science (IAPHS). In 2020, he proudly received the Mentor of the Year Award from Columbia University Irving Medical Center’s Irving Institute for Clinical and Translational Research.

More About Dr. Dustin Duncan

At Columbia, Dr. Duncan also directs Columbia’s Spatial Epidemiology Lab, co-directs the Epidemiology Department’s Social and Spatial Epidemiology Unit and co-directs the Health Equity Core in the Columbia HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies.

Board of Advisors

The Dustin Duncan Research Foundation Board of Advisors is composed of leaders in academia, public health and psychology related to the foundation’s mission including discrimination, resilience and mental health to help expand the Foundation’s impact.

Our Advisors set policies regarding our grant process, spending, investment, management, and governance as well as assisting in the acquisition of essential resources for advancing our research, education and service initiatives.

For questions about the Board of Advisors, please contact us at info@dustinduncanresearch.org

Dustin T. Duncan, ScD
Associate Dean for Health Equity Research
Professor of Epidemiology
Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health

Orlando Harris, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Nursing
University of California San Francisco

Desmond Patton, Ph.D.
Brian and Randi Schwartz University Professor
Chief Strategy Officer
University of Pennsylvania

Lorraine Dean, ScD

Associate Professor

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Steven A. Safren, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology
University of Miami

David R. Williams, Ph.D.
Florence and Laura Smart Norman Professor of Public Health
Professor of African and African American Studies and of Sociology
Chair, Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences
Harvard University T. H. Chan School of Public Health

Erica Warner, ScD

Assistant Professor

Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital

Jermaine Blakely

Medical Student, Howard University – as a new Board Member

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