Andrea Cherrington, M.D., MPH, began serving as Interim Director of the Division of Preventive Medicine (DOPM) on February 1, 2023. Dr. Cherrington is Professor of Medicine, Associate Professor of Public Health, and the Triton Endowed Professor in Health Equity Research.
An outstanding academic generalist and population health scientist, Dr. Cherrington is highly qualified to step into this leadership role in our department’s research-intensive division. Her interdisciplinary collaborations have brought UAB several large grants to conduct community-based interventions with the goal to improve prevention and management of chronic disease in underserved communities, especially in Alabama. She also participates in several projects that examine patient reported outcomes (QOL, Depression, Distress) and the intersection between diabetes and population health.
Dr. Cherrington serves as the principal investigator on the $21 million NIMHD P50 grant Deep South Center to Reduce Disparities in Chronic Diseases, now known as the Forge Ahead Center. The multi-institutional grant investigates the prevention, treatment and management of cardiometabolic diseases associated with health disparities in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. For this exceptional work, Dr. Cherrington was recognized as the 2021 award winner and lecturer for Richard B. Marchase, Ph.D., Interdisciplinary Research Symposium at UAB.
Leveraging her post-doctoral training as a 2005 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar and as a Robert Wood Johnson Physician Faculty Scholar, Dr. Cherrington established UAB’s Clinical and Population Health Sciences Program in 2017. This integrative program aims to develop a thriving research environment within the department for academic generalists focused on developing independent research careers. The program has trained physicians to conduct research in the area and recruited and developed physician-scientists, three of whom now have K awards.
Dr. Cherrington has served as medical director for the Diabetes Clinic at Cooper Green Mercy Health Services since 2013. This work has inspired community partnerships such as MyDiabetesConnect to help link underserved patients with diabetes to resources to manage their condition.
As part of the GRADE Study Research group, she and her colleagues recently published a comparative effectiveness study in the New England Journal of Medicine on microvascular and cardiovascular outcomes for patients taking four different glucose-lowering medications. This is one of 130 articles Dr. Cherrington has authored in peer-reviewed publications since joining our faculty in 2006 as Assistant Professor in DOPM with a dual appointment in the Division of General Internal Medicine.
Dr. Cherrington received a BS from Georgetown, an MD from Vanderbilt, an MPH from UNC-Chapel Hill, and trained at UAB as an Internal Medicine Resident and Chief Resident.
As Interim Division Director, Dr. Cherrington will maintain the DOPM’s forward momentum as the division's previous Director, Mona Fouad, M.D., MPH, steps into her new responsibilities as UAB’s Associate Vice President for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.