Dr. Sharon Morrison has worked with refugee communities in Greensboro for more than 15 years. A professor in the Department of Public Health Education, she is the School of Health and Human Sciences’ Community Engaged Research Fellow. She was honored with the UNC BOG Excellence in Teaching Award in 2017.
At the beginning of the COVID pandemic, she and her graduate students collaborated with Montagnard leaders and youth to build systems that would help their community weather the storm.
The Montagnard people of Vietnam allied themselves with the U.S. forces during the Vietnam War. Since the U.S. pulled out in 1975, they have been persecuted. Many fled. Since the 1980s, many have found refuge in Guilford County.
Between May 2020 and December of 2021, Morrison’s team and the Montagnard Dega Association were able to assist over 200 families and helped vaccinate more than 500 individuals. She also works with Bhutanese and Congolese communities, from two other nations wracked by violence.
Morrison’s community-based participatory research involves working alongside communities to identify problems and implement solutions together. Supportive research takes collaborative effort, she notes. “There’s no magic about it.”
Read more in the most recent UNCG Research Magazine.
Illustration by Antwain Hairston ’21