Naomi Nichele Duke

Dr. Naomi Nichele Duke, MD, PhD, MPH, is an Associate Professor. Working at the intersection of medicine, sociology, and population health, Dr. Duke brings a unique perspective to address social drivers in maternal and child health and adult chronic disease onset. Her work focuses on advancing knowledge and advocacy efforts around the relevance of childhood social context for adult health and the intergenerational transmission of health, including morbidity and mortality related to stress physiology, perceptions of physical and emotional weathering, and health-related behaviors. A main area of interest is in understanding links between youth future orientation and actual trajectories of health. Her work includes focus on understanding relationships between shared sociocultural context and concordance and discordance in cardiometabolic outcomes across generations, including the transition from prediabetes to diabetes and timing in the development of hypertension. Dr. Duke is an academic affiliate with multiple multidisciplinary research collaborations, including the Duke Center for Child & Family Policy, the Duke University Population Research Institute, the Duke Center for the Study of Addictive Risk and Resilience, and the Duke Children’s Health & Discovery Initiative.