EUGENIA ENG
PROFESSOR OF HEALTH BEHAVIOR
Eugenia Eng is a professor in the Department of Health Behavior at UNC-Gillings and a trailblazer in community-engaged scholarship. Eng refined the innovative lay health advisor (LHA) intervention model, an approach that builds on the social support function of social networks that exist naturally within communities. The LHA is an “assets-based” approach to community-based research that encourages partnerships among professionally trained health educators, academics and lay community residents. She first tested the LHA with African American churches in North Carolina. Through the process of her research and practice with the LHA model, Eng has left in place dozens of active, robust lay health advisor networks in communities throughout North Carolina.
Eugenia Eng is a professor in the Department of Health Behavior at UNC-Gillings and a trailblazer in community-engaged scholarship. Eng refined the innovative lay health advisor (LHA) intervention model, an approach that builds on the social support function of social networks that exist naturally within communities. The LHA is an “assets-based” approach to community-based research that encourages partnerships among professionally trained health educators, academics and lay community residents. She first tested the LHA with African American churches in North Carolina. Through the process of her research and practice with the LHA model, Eng has left in place dozens of active, robust lay health advisor networks in communities throughout North Carolina.Eng also pioneered Action-Oriented Community Diagnosis, a unique and effective tool for community assessment, planning and mobilization. She has worked with dozens of North Carolina communities to conduct community diagnoses and trained hundreds of students over several decades. The impact of this body of work can be seen in stronger North Carolina communities.
Eng is recognized nationally as an innovator in the area of community-based participatory research (CBPR), a practice that meets the highest ethical standard for research done in communities. Through CBPR, she has fostered collaborative and participatory partnerships among academia, community-based organizations, and health practitioners across North Carolina and nations of Africa and Southeast Asia.
Eng is the winner of numerous UNC and national awards. She received the Robert Allen Symbol of HOPE Award from the American Journal of Health Promotion in 1999; the Thomas A. Bruce Award of Honor from the American Public Health Association’s Community-Based Public Health Caucus in 2008; and the Distinguished Fellow Award from the Society for Public Health Educators in 2010. From UNC, she received the Greenberg Award for Excellence in Research, Teaching and Service in 2001, the UNC Provost’s Award for Engaged Scholarship in 2006 and the Gillings Teaching Innovations Award in 2016.
In 2014 she was inducted as an inaugural member of the Academy of Community Engagement Scholarship.