Deepak Palakshappa, MD, MSHP, associate professor in the Department of Internal Medicine and Pediatrics and the Department of Epidemiology and Prevention, has a passion for improving the health of low-income and vulnerable populations by understanding the health systems' role in addressing food insecurity and other unmet social needs.
Throughout his eight years with the School of Medicine, The Wake Forest Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) has played a pivotal role in assisting Palakshappa with improving health outcomes for those patients in need. “I think that the infrastructure the CTSI provides for researchers across the institution is invaluable,” said Dr. Palakshappa. “Our team does a lot of health services and academic learning health system research. A lot of the research we do would not be possible without the support of the CTSI.”
The CTSI provides innovative, efficient, and sustainable research infrastructure to accelerate the School of Medicine’s transformation into a leading health care system. Their mission is to partner with the research community to deliver innovative and efficient research support services that contribute to our shared vision of an academic learning health system.
Food insecurity is important to Palakshappa because he witnessed the need as a resident physician. “It actually all boiled down to a patient I saw in a clinic. One day when I was seeing a patient, she said she had been struggling to pay for her medicine and food. She had been to the emergency room multiple times, and no one thought why her diabetes is uncontrolled is because she doesn’t have food at home and that kind of sparked it. I was very fortunate at the time to have a great mentor that was doing a study on food insecurity and let me help with the study,” he said.
Palakshappa has worked with CTSI on 3 grants as a primary investigator or part of the investigation team. He was introduced to CTSI through his mentor Gary Rosenthal. Once here, he was made aware of all the support CTSI provides. Palakshappa has used pilot funding, and the grant writing services from CTSI. Palakshappa has also utilized the K12 program, of which he is now the co-director.
He is currently partnered with several local organizations on a study focusing on assisting patients who are pregnant with food insecurity that was started with help from CTSI. For more information on CTSI and what they offer please visit the CTSI website link here.