Maura Kepper’s work is driven by collaborative design methods, engaging key partners to explore and address the role of complex systems in health and health care. Her research uniquely integrates behavioral health, informatics, and dissemination and implementation science to develop impactful and sustainable interventions.
Employing epidemiologic methods, Kepper evaluates the effects of environments on health and works to create, implement, and sustain interventions targeting modifiable risk factors for chronic diseases. A significant area of her current work harnesses technology and big data to promote healthy behaviors (physical activity and diet), address social needs, and improve the quality of clinical care.
Kepper co-directs the Health Design and Impact Lab, where she leads research focused on reducing the burden of social, economic, and environmental factors that negatively impact individual and population health. She works with the School of Public Health’s Prevention Research Center and WashU Medicine’s Institute for Informatics, Data Science & Biostatistics, reflecting the lab’s multidisciplinary approach. Kepper is an active member in the American Heart Association’s Social Determinants of Health committee and co-chairs the Society of Behavioral Medicine’s Digital Health Special Interest Group.
Prior to joining Washington University, Kepper completed postdoctoral training at Pennington Biomedical Research Center and earned her doctorate in public health from Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center. She is a member of the Delta Omega Honorary Society in Public Health, and her research has been supported by funding from the National Institutes of Health, American Heart Association, and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation.
Areas of Focus:
- Behavioral informatics
- Social determinants of health
- Obesity
- Dissemination and implementation research