Assistant Professor
City University of New York, Brooklyn College
Dr. Margrethe F. Horlyck-Romanovsky’s career is dedicated to addressing health disparities and inequities in NYC underserved communities using community-based participatory research and epidemiological datasets.
In addition to her doctorate in public health, Dr. Horlyck-Romanovsky did a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Institutes of Health. In 2019, Dr. Horlyck-Romanovsky became an assistant professor at Brooklyn College. Here she formed the Immigrant Health Lab with teams of nutrition, pre-med and health sciences students as research associates and community health workers at Brooklyn College. Her lab examines a) intraethnic health variation in populations of African descent, b) adaptation of nutrition assessment tools to better capture dietary intake among immigrant populations, and c) piloting culturally adapted versions of the CDC's Diabetes Prevention Programs. In epidemiological studies, her team has uncovered significant health inequities and differences in risk of type 2 diabetes and other chronic conditions between African American, Afro-Caribbean, and African New Yorkers. Her work illustrates the dangers of categorizing populations primarily by race/ethnicity alone and the importance of data disaggregation.