Roland J. Thorpe PhD

Roland J. Thorpe, Jr., PhD, MS, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Health, Behavior, and Society, Founding Director of the Program for Research on Men’s Health in the Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions, and Deputy Director of the Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He holds a joint appointment in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Department of Medicine, Division of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology, and the Department of Neuroscience, and in the Undergraduate Program in Public Health Studies Program in the Johns Hopkins Krieger School of Arts & Sciences.  He is a Faculty Associate in the Johns Hopkins Center to Reduce Cancer Disparities at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He is also a Faculty Associate in the Johns Hopkins Center of Aging and Health at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and a Faculty Associate in the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing Center for Innovative Care in Aging.  Dr. Thorpe is also a Visiting Research Fellow at Duke University’s Center on Biobehavioral Research on Health Disparities.  Dr. Thorpe is a social epidemiologist and gerontologist whose research agenda focuses on understanding how key social determinants of health such as race, socioeconomic status, and segregation affect health and functional outcomes among men across the life course. He serves as principal investigator of the Stress and Longevity among African American Families, Race Disparities in Mobility Disability Among Men Project, National Black Men’s Health Pilot Study, and the Black Men’s Health Project; co-investigator of the Disparities in Prostate Cancer Treatment Modality and Quality of Life: Baseline Study.  His work appears in flagship journals including, Journals of Gerontology Medical Sciences, Social Science and Medicine, American Journal of Men’s Health, and International Journal of Men’s Health.  Dr. Thorpe’s research has been supported by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities and the National Institute on Aging.  Dr. Thorpe serves on the federally appointed Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health Advisory Committee for Minority Health.   He also serves on the American Psychological Association Working Group on Health Disparities for Boys and Men.  He is a Co-Guest Editor of the Journal of Gerontology Psychological Scienceson the topic of Psycho-social Influences of African Americans Men’s Health. He has served as Co-Guest Editor of Family and Community Healthon the topic of Social Determinants of Men’s Health Disparities, lead Guest Editor of Behavioral Medicineon the Health of Boys and Men, lead Guest Editor of Ethnicity and Diseaseon the topic of Minority Men’s Health Explaining Disparities Using a Life Course Perspective. He is Editor in Chief for Ethnicity and Disease.  Healso teaches courses on health disparities, research methods, advanced methods in health services research, and scientific writing in public health. In addition, he serves as faculty co-sponsor of the Critical Issues in Health Disparities journalclub and the certificate program in Health Disparities and Health Inequality. Dr Thorpe also serves as program faculty on three T32 grants and a R25 grant that focuses on mentoring early career faculty primary from minority serving institutions.  He serves as a grant writing and professional development coach for the National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN) Steps Towards Academic Research Fellowship Program (STAR) at University North Texas Health Sciences Center, NRMN STAR at California State University at Northridge, and NRMN Southeast Training Hub.  During Dr. Thorpe’s career, he has mentored 15 undergraduate (10 underrepresented minorities), 5 master (3 underrepresented minorities), 6 predoctoral (4 underrepresented minorities), 5 medical (4 underrepresented minorities) and 8 postdoctoral students (all underrepresented minorities) and 4 early career faculty (all underrepresented minorities). Of these students, he has published with 10 of them (all underrepresented minorities) and have 4 (all underrepresented minorities) papers under review with one or more of these students.  In 2011, Dr. Thorpe was a recipient of the JHBSPH’s Advising, Mentoring, and Teaching Recognition Award.