Center to Improve Veteran Involvement in Care (CIVIC)
Education Corner February 2023
Welcome New CIVIC Fellow AnnaMarie O'Neill, PhD
AnnaMarie completed a Ph.D. in Applied Psychology at Portland State University in 2022 with an emphasis in Social Psychology. She earned her B.A. in Psychology from University of Nevada – Reno with a minor in Holocaust, Genocide and Peace Studies. Her research interests have been driven by her passion for investigating social determinants of health. AnnaMarie is especially passionate about the potential for research to advance health and well-being of vulnerable populations (such as military populations) by addressing the contributing social contextual factors.
AnnaMarie applied to work with CIVIC because VA is an ideal place to do this work given that this public health problem disproportionally affects Veterans, and they deserve the most effective care that can be developed. She also wanted to learn from the incredible researchers that work at CIVIC, identify and reach geographical areas struggling with the highest rates of firearm injury and suicide, and partner with researchers and staff at local VAs to develop culturally appropriate interventions. She anticipates she will be working on projects related to firearm injury prevention and suicide prevention of rural Veterans. In the future, she aims to design more holistic treatments for chronic illness that include intervention components targeting modifiable social determinants of health.
One of her current research projects includes an evaluation of workplace intervention that was delivered to the Army and Air National Guard workplaces. This intervention incorporated supervisor supportiveness trainings, personalized sleep feedback and goal setting with service member employees. She also has a descriptive paper under review in which she analyzed the nationally representative Health Retirement Study with growth mixture models to: detect subpopulations demonstrating distinct trajectories of morbidity accumulation in older Americans, assess racial and ethnic health differences in likelihood of belonging to specific morbidity accumulation trajectories, and examine how education and wealth interplay with race and ethnicity to alter Non-Hispanic Black adults’ and Hispanic adults’ likelihood of belonging to specific morbidity accumulation trajectories compared to Non-Hispanic White adults.
AnnaMarie’s path to CIVIC was a winding road. As an undergraduate she wanted to be a clinical psychologist, then she was drawn to law because she thought that was the only way to address systematic social problems. Finally, she wanted to understand why social programs and policies worked or did not and how to inform them with research as an applied psychologist. AnnaMarie’s philosophy is that building a meaningful career is an iterative process of trying out roles and projects that call to you.
