Dr. Y. Alicia Hong, PhD
Dr. Y. Alicia Hong is internationally known for research on digital behavioral interventions and consumer health informatics tools that advance healthy aging, self-care, and caregiving in underserved communities. Dr. Hong is a Professor in the Department of Health Administration and Policy at George Mason University. She has served as PI and Co-PI on large research projects funded by NIH, NSF, HRSA, and CDC, and has published more than 120 peer-reviewed articles. She serves on grant review panels for NIH, NSF, and other national science foundations in Austria, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. Her work develops scalable, culturally tailored solutions to advance health equity and population health.
Research Interests
- Developing and evaluating personalized behavioral interventions for chronic disease self-care and caregiving.
- Improving the delivery, adoption, and sustained use of evidence-based health programs across diverse populations and settings.
- Enhancing clinical decision-making, resource allocation, and patient-provider communication through AI and integration of multimodal data sources (EHR, patient-generated data).
What's New
Dr. Hong continues her NIH grant review service this year on two study sections at the Center for Scientific Review. In April 2026, she served on the Clinical Care and Health Informatics (CCHI) study section. In June 2026, she continued her ongoing service on the Lifestyle Change and Behavioral Health (LCBH) study section. Both panels […]
Dr. Hong has been invited to serve on grant review panels for two European national science foundations. In November to December 2025, she reviewed for the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). In May 2026, she reviewed for the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) Talent Programme Vidi SSH — a flagship program supporting mid-career researchers […]
Dr. Hong has been invited to deliver the Tay Gavin Erickson Lecture at the UMass Amherst Center for Research on Families on April 28, 2026. Her talk, “From Information to Intelligence: Health Communication in a Digital World,” examines how digital and AI-enabled tools are transforming health communication, with implications for chronic care, family caregiving, and […]
Since the publication of “The dynamics of eating behaviors and eating environment in college students: discrepancies between app-tracked dietary intake and self-perceived food consumption,” multiple news outlets have cited our study — including Vice, Gizmodo, Europe Says, Knowridge, The University Network, Business Standard (India), Die Gesunde Wahrheit, SciTechDaily, NewsCenter (Nigeria), and Earth.com.
The new Graduate Certificate in Artificial Intelligence in Health is available from Spring 2026. AI is reshaping public health and healthcare in real-time; how can professionals and students in the AI era get ready for the changing work environment and career opportunities? This certificate is designed to help them get ready. The training will prepare […]
Dr. Hong has received a new R01 grant entitled “WECARE: A personalized intervention for underserved Chinese American dementia caregivers” from National Institute of Aging. This 5-year research project with funding of $3,088,427 includes Co-Is from Drs. Lily Wang and Jessica Lin from George Mason, Dr. Hae-Ra Han from Johns Hopkins and Dr. Ken Hepburn from […]
Dr. Hong has received a new NSF grant (2517316), as a Co-PI for a project entitled “Enhancing AI Literacy and Resilience through Intergenerational Digital Storytelling among Older Adults”. This 3-year research project with funding of $661,000 is a joint collaboration with Dr. Janice Zhang, Assistant Professor of Computer Science from College of William and Mary. […]
Part of Dr. Lisa McKeown’s thesis research will be published as conference presentations at 2025 APHA in Washington DC as oral presentation. One is “Provider-Interacting eHealth Behaviors and Patient-Centered Communication: Trends, Predictors, and Disparities”; the other is “Patient-Centered Communication and Provider Interacting eHealth behaviors: Differential Impacts on Cancer Screening by Race and Ethnicity”. Dr. Lisa […]