Christina Cutshaw, PhD, has been appointed as an assistant professor in the Health and Promotion Sciences Division at the UA Zuckerman College of Public Health.

After working as a clinical assistant in a residential substance abuse and psychiatric hospital in Georgia, Dr. Cutshaw became interested in the efficacy of treatments for people with mental illnesses and drug problems. “Watching the patients go through treatment, often more than once, made me wonder if the care being offered was effective and how you could study treatment effectiveness,” she said.

That experience inspired Dr. Cutshaw to attend graduate school at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. After receiving a master of health science degree from the Department of Mental Health, she received a pre-doctoral fellowship in child and adolescent mental health services from the National Institute of Mental Health and graduated in 2004.

Dr. Cutshaw is interested in research that addresses mental health problems among children, and in particular interventions for parents who have maltreated their children. She also is interested in the overlap between the criminal justice and mental health systems. However, “as a new Tucson resident and a new professor, I’d like to meet with people in the community and in schools and find out what their questions are in regards to mental health issues.” Dr. Cutshaw said. “That’s what good public health professionals do, identify the needs in the community and then work with the community towards common goals.”

Currently, Dr. Cutshaw is involved in the data committee of the Pima County Model Court Working Group on methamphetamine use and the child welfare system. The committee is responsible for identifying sources of data that can shed light on the role substance abuse plays in parent’s involvement in the child welfare system and trying to improve the quality of that data. Dr. Cutshaw hopes to bring together problem-solving courts with evidence-based interventions to improve parent’s abilities to care for their children. 

Before coming to Arizona, Dr. Cutshaw briefly worked as a coordinator on a randomized trial of an intervention for youth with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and their caregivers at The Marcus Institute in Atlanta.  As a consultant, Dr. Cutshaw also analyzed data and wrote reports for the Georgia Public Defenders Standards Council on arrests of 13- to 17-year-olds for crimes in which they may be tried as an adult. Dr. Cutshaw taught a special study course in child neglect last spring at the UA Zuckerman College of Public Health and will teach a class “Public Health Approaches to Mental Disorders in the United States” in the spring of 2007.