Faculty Spotlight - Dr. April Wilhelm, MD, MPH

This December, PHDR spotlights April Wilhelm, MD, MPH, a Family Medicine physician, clinician-researcher, and Assistant Professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health and the Program in Health Disparities Research. Her research centers on cancer prevention and tobacco prevention and control in marginalized and underserved populations with a particular focus on refugee and immigrant communities. Her current projects aim to develop and test family-focused interventions to reduce children’s environmental tobacco smoke exposure. She is also beginning a collaboration to better understand other substance use in immigrant communities such as khat and betel nut.

Dr. Wilhelm enjoys using community-engaged approaches and working across disciplines, backgrounds, and lived experiences to inform her research. She is currently partnering with several Somali community researchers at WellShare International & other researchers at the University of Minnesota to design a program to support Somali families in reducing children’s smoke exposure from shisha pipes in their homes. In her clinical practice, she particularly loves providing preventive health care to patients of all ages and supporting her patients in their efforts to make healthy behavior changes.

When she’s not working, Dr. Wilhelm enjoys spending time outside and loves cooking new recipes, gardening, yoga, meditation, biking, and playing with her 2 young children. She’s also an avid reader and is part of a monthly book club. Over the summer she read “Braiding Sweetgrass,” by Robin Wall Kimmerer and enjoyed sharing some of the book with her son while they were gardening. PHDR is lucky to have Dr. Wilhelm and looks forward to her contributions in tobacco health equity research!