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Tshiswaka, Ilunga Daudet

Daudet Ilunga Tshiswaka

Biography

Dr. Daudet Ilunga Tshiswaka is an Associate Professor of Public Health. He has a PhD. in Community Health from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research interests focus on health disparity, global health, and minorities’ health.

Much of his research has involved health promotion and studies of health issues of minorities such as Africans who immigrated to the United States. His doctoral dissertation, for example, examined perceptions of diabetes risk factors among Congolese immigrants in Illinois.

His current research examines such topics as understanding colorectal and prostate cancer screenings uptake among US and foreign-born men in the US, stress factors in transnational West African women, aspects of the Ebola outbreak, and knowledge of condom use as an HIV preventative measure in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

He has conducted studies on assistive technology use by people with disabilities, health insurance knowledge among Congolese immigrants and African-Americans, high blood pressure among African transnational migrants, and health education and health awareness. Peer-reviewed publications carrying his work include Journal of Public Health, Journal of Race and Policy, Journal of Pan African Studies, and Transnational Social Review: A Social Work Journal.

Research

Stroke and Post-stroke Rehabilitation

Current research projects focus on health disparities related to stroke prevention and post-stroke rehabilitation. Emphasis on these two “ends” of the problem stems from a desire to lessen the economic, social, and personal impacts of stroke by better understanding the range of factors involved in prevention and rehabilitation strategies. Similar to many chronic diseases, stroke is not only more amenable to prevention (through lifestyle change interventions) but also disproportionally affects the economic, social, and personal factors when not prevented. Working to prevent stroke also connects explicitly to a wide range of public health crises currently facing us, such as obesity and cardiovascular conditions, and thus affords a platform for intervening into those public health problems as well.