Dr. Ford's research focuses on improving adolescent health and addresses issues such as adolescent access to high quality healthcare, adolescent patient-physician communication, and adolescent privacy concerns. Her most recent interest has been in understanding strategies to influence adolescent patient-physician-parent communication to improve adolescent health, and she established a divisional research program called the “Patients, Parents, and Professionals Partnering to Improve Adolescent Health Program,” or P4.

This team recently completed a pilot project documenting that parents and adolescents want healthcare professionals to help them learn, and talk about, a wide range of adolescent health topics.

In follow-up, Dr. Ford is principal investigator on a pilot randomized control trial designed to determine the effectiveness of evidence-based interventions delivered in primary care clinic settings to increase parent-teen communication; influence adolescent health behaviors; and improve health outcomes related to sexual health, alcohol use, and teen driving.

BS, Florida State University (Sociology), 1979

MD, University of Florida, 1983

Postdoctoral Fellowship, University of California, San Francisco (Adolescent Medicine), 1995

Orton P. Jackson Endowed Chair in Adolescent Medicine

Professor of Pediatrics

Society for Adolescent Health & Medicine, Board of Directors, 2009-2011

American Pediatric Society, 2012-

Society for Adolescent Health & Medicine, President, 2014-2015

International Association for Adolescent Health, 2017-

Society for Adolescent Medicine New Investigator Award, 1996

University of North Carolia at Chapel Hill Junior Faculty Research Development Award, 1996

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Generalist Physician Faculty Scholars Program Award, 1999