Tiffany N. Ford, PhD, MPH '16
Assistant Professor
Community Health Sciences
Pronouns: She/Her/Hers
Contact
Building & Room:
681 SPHPI
Address:
1603 West Taylor Street, 6th floor
Email:
CV Link:
Related Sites:
Office Hours
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| Thursday | 12:00pm – 01:00pm | |
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About
Tiffany N. Ford (she/her) is an Assistant Professor of Community Health Sciences at the University of Illinois Chicago School of Public Health, where she teaches a graduate-level qualitative research methods course. Dr. Ford is also a nonresident fellow with the Center on Economic Security and Opportunity at the Brookings Institution.
In her research, Dr. Ford uses qualitative, quantitative, spatial, and mixed methods approaches to study Black people’s subjective well-being, or self-reported quality of life, over the life course. Specifically, she examines (1) how anti-Black structural racism operates via policy, governance, and social norms to unequally distribute the resources that contribute to subjective well-being, (2) what people are doing about that unequal distribution, and (3) how community-centered research strategies can lead to more equitable public policy. Ultimately, Dr. Ford is interested in place-based policy and practice interventions to support a good quality of life. Her work is shaped by her relationships with community-based organizations, community-led coalitions, and individuals most harmed by structural oppression in Chicago and throughout the nation. Dr. Ford was awarded a two-year Robert Wood John Foundation grant through the Health Equity Scholar for Action program to support her research and career development.
Previously, Ford was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Center for Economic Security and Opportunity at the Brookings Institution and a Health Equity Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Politics of Race, Immigration, Class and Ethnicity Research Initiative at Cornell University.
Ford earned her PhD in Policy Studies, with a concentration in Social Policy, from the University of Maryland School of Public Policy, where her dissertation won the Innovative Research Award. Before her PhD, Ford worked as a policy analyst in Chicago, where her policy research and advocacy centered on the local safety net and state health workforce. She has an MPH from the University of Illinois Chicago School of Public Health and a bachelor's in Human and Social Development and Economics from the University of Miami.
Selected Grants
Robert Wood John Foundation (RWJF) Health Equity Scholar for Action (HES4A), Exploring subjective well-being, power, and policy for people racialized as Black in Cook County, Illinois, Principal Investigator
Center for Health in Cognitive Aging (CHECA), part of the Resource Centers for Minority Aging Research (RCMAR) funded by the National Institute on Aging (NIA), Is subjective well-being protective against cognitive decline among adults in the United States?: A life course assessment, Principal Investigator
Publication Aggregators
Service to Community
University of Illinois Health Hospital and Clinics Community Advisory Board
Long COVID Awareness, Truth, & Equity (LoCATE) Research Advisory Team
Notable Honors
2024-2025, Research Article of the Year, Methodological category, University of Illinois Chicago, School of Public Health
2024-2025, Bernard H. Baum Golden Apple Award for Teaching, Honorable Mention, University of Illinois Chicago, School of Public Health
Education
PhD, 2021, University of Maryland College Park (Policy Studies)
MPH, 2016, University of Illinois Chicago (Community Health Sciences)
BS, 2014, University of Miami (Human and Social Development, Economics)