About
Dr. Chen’s research focuses on developing and implementing tech-based interventions to address behaviors associated with vaccination, HIV/STI, substance abuse and mental health issues in vulnerable populations including ethnic minority and immigrant youth and young adults. Professor Chen is also a board-certified Psychiatric/Mental Health Nurse Practitioner who continues to provide direct care to individuals with mental health and substance use issues. She has served as a visiting professor with University of California-San Francisco’s Center for AIDS Prevention Studies.
Dr. Chen is one of the few U.S. nurse scientists using technologies to develop cutting-edge, culturally and linguistically congruent mHealth interventions
to address health disparities in behavioral/mental health among under-
served populations, including immigrants and refugees. Based on the Com- munity-Based Participatory Research principles, she has led interventions co-designed with patients, families, and community collaborators to address emergent behavioral/mental health issues. This line of research uses effective and affordable technologies (e.g., digital stories, serious video game, tailored computerized intervention) to address risky behaviors (e.g., sexually transmit- ted infections, substance use), and promote mental health and vaccination behavior (i.e., HPV, COVID-19). She has also led studies that examine social-cul- tural-policy factors contributing to health outcomes during disasters and COVID-19 pandemic among vulnerable populations, including minority nurses in the U.S. and caregivers of older adults with dementia in Taiwan. The find- ings have provided timely information to facilitate culturally and linguistically relevant emergency strategies and workforce redevelopment efforts. Due to the significant contributions of her research, she has been invited by funding agencies (e.g., National Institute of Health, National Hazards Center, CDC, Pa- tient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute) and journals to review proposals and papers, and serve on the nursing and community organization boards to help advance science and translate evidence into practices.
As the principal investigator, Dr. Chen has conducted research funded by fed- eral funding agencies including National Institute of Health (NIH) and National Science Foundation (NSF). Two of her current projects use innovate serious video games to help unvaccinated youth and their parents to learn about HPV and COVID-19, encourage communications among youth, parents and healthcare providers, and promote timely vaccination in youth to prevent the associated morbidity and mortality. The long-term goal that Dr. Chen and her transdisciplinary team would like to achieve is to continue developing and im- plementing these low-cost, easy-to-deliver, and scalable interventions to make large impacts on behavioral and mental health across different populations and settings.