Mignonne C. Guy

Background

About Mignonne C. Guy

Dr. Mignonne C. Guy is an associate professor with tenure in the Department of Family Medicine and Population Health at Virginia Commonwealth University. Dr. Guy’s research centers on social and structural determinants that contribute to health inequities among minoritized populations. She has a strong interest in using critical race, epistemic oppression and ecosocial lenses to examine the complex interplay between multilevel factors that influence health and how they shape health behaviors and outcomes in people of African descent. Recently, she has expanded her research focus to examine how systemic racism is reproduced in academia and in biomedical research and thus reifies health inequities. Dr. Guy has published over 53 manuscripts in cancer prevention, tobacco control and regulatory sciences. She is the principal investigator of the project entitled, Eliminating Systemic Racism in Commercial Tobacco Control Research funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (Grant no. 79456, PI: Guy) where she leads a transdisciplinary team to engage a variety of stakeholders from communities, academic institutions, policymakers, funding agencies and publishing entities from across the nation to interrogate the role of research in reproducing tobacco-related health inequities and to develop and disseminate an antiracist and equity-centered road map focused on eliminating tobacco-related inequities among Black tobacco users. Dr. Guy is also a Center MPI, MPI of Project 4: Black Health Block Quit and Screen Project, and co-project director of the Investigator Development Core (IDC) in the NIH/NIMHD funded Center for Research, Health, and Social Justice (1P50MD017319-01, MPIs: Cornell, Fagan, Guy). As MPI of the Black Health Block Quit and Screen Project, a partnership with the National Medical Association (NMA), she co-leads a multidisciplinary team to conduct a study that aims to increase referrals for smoking cessation and lung cancer screening among Black populations. As co-project director of the IDC, Dr. Guy leads the development and training of scientists and community members to conduct cancer prevention and control and cardiovascular disease research in Black and/or rural communities. For 10 years, she was a co-investigator and site lead investigator in the FDA/NIDA funded VCU Center for the Study of Tobacco Products (U54DA036105; MPIs: Eissenberg & Breland) where she developed innovative methods to surveil emerging tobacco products on the market and used these data to inform tobacco regulation.