Julie Gleason-Comstock
Administrative Title
Assistant Professor, Full-timePopulation Health Sciences
Office Phone
(313) 577-6681
Biography
Julie Gleason – Comstock, PhD, is a Public Health Researcher and Educator, and Master Certified Public Health Education Specialist (MCHES). She teaches FPH 7760 Community Health Education and FPH 7120 Global Public Health in the Wayne State University School of Medicine, Department of Family Medicine & Public Health Sciences (DFMPHS) Master of Public Health (MPH) program. Students in FPH 7120 Global Public Health participate in a Class Symposia which focuses Social Determinants of Health through the lens of the World Health Organization (WHO) 2030 Sustainable Development Goals and the United States Healthy People 2030. Global, international, and national public health impact of the COVID-19 syndemic and opioid epidemic are explored in the Symposia. She is faculty in the Global Health Research Collaborative (GHRC) Seminar. As a Research Advisor and Mentor for FPH 7990 Directed Study and School of Medicine Research Elective 1B: MD15542, Dr. Gleason-Comstock works closely with MPH students and medical students on cardiovascular health and substance use risk reduction projects based on community-based participatory research.
Dr. Gleason-Comstock has served on multiple WSU Doctoral Dissertation Committees in the School of Nursing, College of Education and Department of Communication. Since 2023, she has served as an Academic Editor for PLoS One, where she focuses on public health research and randomized controlled trials. Dr. Gleason-Comstock leads the Department of Family Medicine and Public Health Sciences (DFMPHS) Public Health Research Lab (PHRL) at Wayne State University, mentoring MPH students, medical students, and BSPH students in research methods with a focus on evaluation, research publication, and proposal development. Her students have presented their work at conferences (i.e., the 2020 WSU Medical Innovation Conference, 2021 Michigan Family Medicine Research Conference, 2022 Department of Family Medicine and Public Health Sciences Research Day, and 2024 Michigan Family Medicine Research Conference). Dr. Gleason-Comstock was a 2020 North American Primary Care Representative Research Group (NAPCRG) Grant Generating Program Fellow and served as the Michigan Journal of Public Health Editor from 2010-2016.
As a Principal Investigator, her research continues to focus on translational research in public health-based chronic and infectious disease through randomized controlled trials and community-based participatory research. Cardiovascular research results for AchieveBP (NCT02069015) are shown in www.clinicaltrials.gov. Dr. Gleason-Comstock's research on substance use disorder among youth and young adults is currently being addressed in a Wayne State University Office of the Vice President for Research (OVPR) Grant Advanced Program “Youth Overdose Understanding Risks (YOURS).” In collaboration with Detroit Community Health Awareness Group, Inc. (CHAG), a community-based participatory research and randomized controlled trial approach to empower youth in addressing substance use and overdose prevention continues to be developed. Researchers are gathering data on community health worker mentorship programs for youth, partnerships with youth-centered organizations, and provision of access to mental health counseling. Collaboration with the WSU College of Education Community Health Worker Academy focuses on recruiting eligible young adults as community health workers to work with educational and community groups in Detroit/Wayne County on substance use prevention among young adults.
For examples of publications and partnerships, please see MyBibliography and the attached CV.