Kim Crawford, PhD

Diabetes

Kim Crawford is a Public Health Consultant in the Diabetes Practice Area at NACDD. She graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University in the late 90s with a PhD in social psychology, a research-based psychology with a focus on group dynamics. Not wanting to “publish or perish” in the academic sphere, she set out to apply her skills in the “real world.” This started out with a brief stint in the criminal justice field, but quickly changed to public health, where Kim landed at the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) as an evaluator for their diabetes, cardiovascular health, and tobacco-use control grants. Although this presented a huge learning curve, Kim dug in and immediately fell in love with the chance to impact people’s health as well as her own. While at VDH, Kim spearheaded a collaboration team comprised of chronic disease program managers who worked together on combined activities, sharing budget dollars to achieve a greater impact than any one program could achieve on its own. Kim also played a role in VDH’s diabetes prevention efforts, where Virginia was one of six states funded to answer core questions about how to translate Diabetes Prevention Program research into practice for State Health Departments and partners.

In 2004, Kim began a new adventure – starting her own consulting business focused on program evaluation, strategic planning, group facilitation, grant writing, and more. For more than 20 years Kim has worked in the field of chronic disease prevention and control, most of that time focusing on diabetes and prediabetes.

Whenever possible, Kim loves to connect her creative side to her work. She loves hearing and telling great stories, reading, creative writing, drama, making silly videos, watching “I Love Lucy” and “The Dick Van Dyke Show” reruns, playing the piano, and savoring a great cup of coffee.