Dorothy Chin

Dr. Dorothy Chin works at the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA.  After she conpleted her post-doctoral fellowship on the Biobehavioral Aspects of HIV/AIDS at UCLA in 1999, she published the first HIV behavioral risk study on Asian Pacific-Islander (API) American women, describing how risks are assessed and defined among this under-researched population.  Since then, she has expanded her research on HIV risk behaviors to include other under-researched and underserved populations, including African-American and Latina women and those with childhood sexual abuse and histories of other, cumulative adversities.  Her body of work rests on a background in cross-cultural and clinical psychology, which includes expertise in the theory in cultural and cross-cultural psychopathology and cross-cultural research methods.  Within these spheres, she has published articles about the sociocultural influences of psychopathology, taking an international cross-cultural approach, as well as papers on cross-cultural qualitative methodology and psychometric evaluations in minority and under-researched groups.  

Dr. Chin is currently affiliated with the UCLA Center for Culture, Trauma, and Mental Health Disparities, which examines the effects of trauma on psychological functioning, including depression, anxiety, and PTSD among primarily ethnic minority populations.   Prior to that, she was Principal Investigator of a two-year grant Healing Our Women (HOW) Project, a capacity-building effort funded by the California Endowmnet to increase integrated HIV-trauma interventions in community-based organizations in Los Angeles.  After being implemented in New York City in a collaboration with Planned Parenthood, the HOW curriculum has since been reviewed and designated by the CDC as an evidenced-based intervention demonstrated to be effective in the community.  Dr. Chin was also Co-Investigator of a NIMH-funded four-year grant to test a model of HIV risk-reduction among women in L.A. County. 

Dr. Chin has been a regular reviewer for several journals, including Journal of Traumatic Stress, Psychological Assessment, and Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, and have been on the Editoral Board for Psychology of Women Quarterly, Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, and Psychological Assessment.  She has been an ad-hoc reviewer for the Demography and Populations Studies Branch of the National Institute of Child Health and Development (NICHD), as well as a regular seed grant reviewer for the UCLA AIDS Institute.  She has also mentored doctoral-level scholars from South Africa as part of the Fogarty International International Collaborative Program, a multi-disciplinary training program for research in trauma and the effects on health and mental health.