Babalola Faseru

Babalola Faseru MD, MPH is an Assistant Professor with a joint appointment in the Department of Preventive Medicine & Public Health (primary) and the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Kansas Medical Center.  An internationally-trained physician and epidemiologist, Babalola’s primary research area is in cancer prevention and control, with a focus on nicotine dependence and smoking cessation. He has research experience in smoking cessation behavioral treatment, pharmacotherapy, and pharmacokinetics in both clinical and community-based settings. His broad goal is to unravel the biobehavioral mechanisms underlying health disparities due to tobacco use and other preventable chronic disease risk factors among underserved populations. His current research is focused on examining behavioral, genetic and environmental determinants of persistent smoking and smoking-related health disparities among understudied populations such as minority populations and hospitalized smokers. Babalola’s research is currently funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the American Cancer Society (ACS). These studies include the Kick It at Swope project,-enhancing tobacco use treatment for African-American light smokers, TCTAB- a longitudinal study of tobacco use among American Indian Tribal College Students, EQUIP- Increasing post-discharge follow-up among hospitalized smokers and 2KanQuit- smoking cessation intervention for  partners of  hospitalized smokers. He is also involved in studies on cancer prevention, child safety, injury prevention and HIV/AIDs in Nigeria. He is a full member of the University of Kansas Cancer Center and the Center for American-Indian Community Health. Babalola teaches Principles of Epidemiology and mentors medical, public health and research students in epidemiology, international health, public health in developing countries and health disparities research. He was the recipient of the 2011 Excellence in Public Health Teaching at the University of Kansas School of Medicine.