Samantha Sabo

Samantha Sabo DrPH, MPH is an Associate Professor in Health Sciences and a researcher with the Center for Health Equity Research. For more than a decade, she has focused on the role and impact of Community Health Worker (CHW) workforce interventions and advocacy to improve the social determinants of chronic disease and maternal and child health. She has completed several CHW workforce studies to support building and sustaining the CHW workforce in Arizona and nationally.

Dr. Sabo is a member of the Arizona Department of Health Community Health Worker Leadership Council, a member of the Arizona Community Health Worker Association board of directors and is a founding member of the Arizona Community Health Representative Coalition.

Nationally, she serves in leadership positions with several CHW workforce and policy efforts, including the American Public health Association – CHW Section and the CHW Common Indicators Initiative. Dr. Sabo enjoys teaching and mentoring students within the newly established Master of Public Health Program at NAU and is a primary faculty member within the Health Promotion Concentration and Indigenous Health Track, as well as the Interdisciplinary PhD program at NAU.

In both her research and public health practice, Dr. Sabo is a multi-disciplinary, community-engaged scholar and uses community-based participatory research, mixed, quantitative and qualitative methods and service-learning to identify community informed approaches to advance health equity. Through her trusted community and institutional collaborations,  Dr. Sabo has served as MPI and Co-Investigator to several National Institute of Health, state and foundation funded research and practice initiatives, and currently co-leads the Community Engagement Core for the Southwest Health Equity Research Collaborative funded through the NIH Research Centers in Minority Institutions (RCMI) program.

Project title: Southwest Health Equity Research Collaborative (SHERC) Community Engagement Core
Description: The goal of the SHERC-CEC is to cultivate and sustain productive collaborations and partnerships with community-based organizations to foster community awareness of and participation in health disparities research.
People: Nicky Teufel-Shone, Samantha Sabo, Carmenlita Chief, Mark Remiker, Alexandra Samarron Longorio and Heather Williamson

Project title: Evaluating the impact of Arizona’s Health Start Program on maternal, and child health outcomes
Description: Evaluating the impact of Arizona’s Health Start Program on maternal, and child health outcomes
The goal of this project is to seek to evaluate the impact of Arizona’s longstanding Health Start (HS) Program on maternal and child health outcomes.
People: Samantha Sabo and Kelly McCue

Project title: Advocacy Intervention for Smoke-Free Policy in Lakota Communities
Description: The goal of this project is to develop a community level smoke-free intervention to support the adoption of smoke-free policy among Oglala Lakota Sioux government and business entities. This is a partnership with the Black Hills Center for American Indian Health Native American Research Center for Health (NARCH) – Advocacy Intervention for Smoke-Free Policy in Lakota Communities.
People: Samantha Sabo, Alexandra Samarron Longorio, Chantal Nez

Project title: Cigarette Smoking Among American Indian Women Experiencing Inter-Personal Violence (IPV)
Description: The goal of this project is to develop an individual and systems level intervention to support smoke-free behavior and environments among Native women of the Great Plains who have experienced interpersonal violence. This is a partnership with the Black Hills Center for American Indian Health Native American Research Center for Health (NARCH).
People: Samantha Sabo, Alexandra Samarron Longorio, Chantal Nez

Project title: Cheyenne River Sioux Smoke-free Homes Project
Description: The goal of this randomized control trial is to develop and test a smoke-free homes intervention to promote the adoption of smoke-free policy at the household level. This is a partnership with the Black Hills Center located in Rapid City, South Dakota.
People: Samantha Sabo, Alexandra Samarron Longorio, Chantal Nez