Jennifer Kraschnewski completed her medical degree at the University of Wisconsin and internal medicine residency training at Duke University Medical Center. Following residency, she completed a NIH-NRSA Primary Care Research Fellowship and Masters in Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is a clinician-investigator with a research focus on behavioral interventions to promote healthy lifestyles in clinical and community settings to address health disparities. Her research is funded by the NIH, Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services (SAMHSA), with over $35 million in current awards. Dr. Kraschnewski has disseminated her research in over 120 national/international presentations and over 100 peer-reviewed publications.
Dr. Kraschnewski leads two key programs to address health disparities. She serves as the PI for a five-year, $5.5 million CDC REACH (Racial and Ethnical Approaches to Community Health) grant to provide the Hispanic and Latino communities in Lebanon and Reading, Pennsylvania the evidence-based tools to improve their health, prevent chronic diseases, and reduce health disparities via community-led culturally tailored interventions. In 2018, Dr. Kraschnewski launched Penn State Project ECHO (Extension for Community Health Outcomes). The heart of the ECHO model is its knowledge-sharing networks, led by expert specialist teams mentoring multiple community providers. Over time, participants become experts – engaged in a wider community of learners and empowered to address complex conditions. As a result, patients and communities get the high-quality care they need, when they need it, and close to home. Penn State Project ECHO has completed 49 series in 30 topic areas. Penn State Project ECHO have served over 1800 providers in 45 states and six countries and delivered over 1600 continuing medical education hours. Penn State ECHO has led over $10,500,000 in grant funding to pursue this important work and has generated over $50 in direct grant funding for every $1 of investment.
Dr. Kraschnewski serves as Director and MPI of the NIH-funded Penn State Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI). The CTSI advances clinical and translational science to improve health and combat disease. It does this through collaboration and team science across scientific fields, an infrastructure of research excellence and data-driven decision-making, strong partnerships, and educational opportunities for a diverse and expanding clinical and translational science workforce. These efforts build on the Institute’s cross-university foundation and land grant mission, generate innovation, enable efficient research, educate the current and next generation of scientists, and address the health needs of communities across the Commonwealth and beyond. The CTSI’s vision is to serve as the cornerstone of clinical and translational science throughout Penn State, with an emphasis on promoting rural health and health equity, more generally. A key component of our vision is that interdisciplinary teamwork and broad engagement of stakeholders provide the foundation for success.
Administratively, Dr. Kraschnewski is the Vice Chair for Research for the Department of Medicine where she leads the department’s initiatives to transform clinical research. The Department is the largest in the College in both number of faculty and research expenditures with over $57 million in funding in FY 20-21. In addition, Dr. Kraschnewski enjoys teaching internal medicine resident physicians and medical students while caring for patients in the primary care setting.