Dr. Dodani Receives Community Service Award

Dr. Sunita Dodani, assistant dean for research in the Medical College of Georgia School of Nursing, has received a community service award for a program using churches to disseminate healthy lifestyle information.

Her Fit Body & Soul study promoted behavioral lifestyle change through weight loss, exercise and nutrition through 12 weeks of sessions in black churches.

Dr. Dodani will receive the 2008 Community Service Award from the International Society on Hypertension in Blacks at a July 18 awards ceremony during the society's annual conference in New Orleans. She also will present findings from the study and two studies of coronary artery disease in South Asian immigrants at the conference.

Dr. Dodani, an epidemiologist and cardiologist, came to MCG in 2006 from the University of Pittsburgh, where she received a doctoral degree in epidemiology and a certificate in global health. She earned her medical degree from The Aga Khan University in Pakistan and completed a cardiology fellowship at the University of Colorado Denver. She earned a master’s degree in clinical epidemiology from Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia.

In 2001, Dr. Dodani received the National Gold Medal as the youngest researcher in Pakistan. She is a reviewer for nine journals, including American Journal of Public Health, European Journal of Clinical Nutrition and Globalization & Health. She is a fellow of the American Heart Association and a corresponding member of the Cardiovascular Diseases Expert Group for the World Health Organization’s new Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries and Risk Factors Study.