Elizabeth R. Tomlinson, PhD, BSN

About

Elizabeth Reeves Tomlinson is an Assistant Professor in the School’s Department of Health Policy and Management and teaches in the in the BSPH and MPH programs. She previously held a faculty position in the Department of Nursing at NC Central University and has also served as a consulting instructor for Duke University School of Nursing since 2015.

Dr. Tomlinson is an elected board member of the Nursing Network on Violence Against Women International and a member of the Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing. She completed her Doctorate of Philosophy in Nursing at Duke University School of Nursing in 2018 and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing with highest honors from the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Nursing in 2011.

As an undergraduate, she completed an internship in the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, where she worked with research participants with post-traumatic stress disorder who were receiving treatment for alcohol addiction. Dr. Tomlinson served as a home visiting nurse for the Chatham County Public Health Department, providing care for pregnant women and young children. This clinical experience provided her with a systems perspective on how complex and multifaceted challenges, vulnerabilities, and strengths impact individual and community health, especially in rural and underserved settings. Her main interests are community-engaged methodologies, health equity, women’s health, and the psychosocial consequences of traumatic violence.

Her research efforts focus on improving health care experiences for survivors of violence, particularly those who experience layered health disparities associated with race, socioeconomic status, and other social determinants of health.

Research Activities

• Intimate partner and sexual violence
• Trauma-informed care and trauma-informed practice
• Patient engagement and health behaviors
• Discrimination in healthcare and provider-patient relationships
• Healthcare quality improvement
• Health disparities, social determinants of health, and health equity
• Qualitative, translational, community-engaged and participatory methods
  

Education