Cheryl Knott

Cheryl L. Knott, PhD, is a Professor in the Department of Behavioral and Community Health as well as Co-Leader of the Population Science Program and Associate Director of Community Outreach and Engagement at the University of Maryland Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center. She is an inaugural MPower Professor of the University of Maryland Strategic Partnership: MPowering the State. She is founding Director of the Community Health Awareness, Messages, and Prevention (CHAMP) research lab and the Editor-in-Chief of the peer-reviewed journal, Translational Behavioral Medicine. Dr. Knott holds a secondary appointment in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at the University of Maryland, School of Medicine.

Dr. Knott's research program has generated more than $17 million in extramural support as Principal Investigator, from sources such as the NIH, CDC, and ACS. The program has resulted in more than 170 peer-reviewed publications, with many including students and community members as co-authors.

Dr. Knott has a long history of conducting clinical trials to develop and evaluate community-based cancer communication interventions to increase cancer knowledge and screening, with a focus on cancer disparities that impact African Americans. Her more recent research has taken on an implementation science focus (the “Project HEAL” trials), examining intervention implementation, adaptation, and sustainability. This includes research conducted both in the US and globally. She also studies the role of organizational factors in outcomes across the implementation continuum from adoption to sustainability. This research includes the application of implementation science theories and frameworks to community-based cancer control interventions.

Dr. Knott's social epidemiology research program has historically informed her interventional research in cancer disparities. Currently, she is conducting two large-scale studies examining the role of historical structural racism in cancer disparities that impact African Americans. The first study, supported by the American Cancer Society, is examining complex, multi-level relationships between individual, interpersonal, and neighborhood-level factors predicting cancer risk, prevention, and screening behaviors in African Americans. The second study, supported by the National Institutes of Health, will develop a multi-dimensional national index of place-based structural racism and discrimination (SRD), followed by a large survey to evaluate the role of SRD in cancer control behaviors in African Americans. These two studies were preceded by an extensive body of research that examines religious involvement and health among African Americans, including the longitudinal Religion and Health in African Americans (“RHIAA”) study.