Bianca Allison is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a primary care pediatrician in the Division of General Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine with a clinical focus on adolescent medicine and contraception. She is also completing a National Research Service Award (NRSA) Primary Care Research Fellowship (funded by HRSA as a T32) in health services research.

Dr. Allison’s research program centers on mapping the landscape of health disparities around adolescent contraception access and utilization. This research has catalyzed her interest in promoting reproductive justice, and especially developing innovative and equitable methods of supporting adolescents in their reproductive goals in primary care settings. She has gained formal and experiential training in numerous research methods, including secondary data analyses, primary data collection (quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods analyses), systematic reviews and meta-analyses. She seeks to develop a patient-centered, community-engaged, and equity-oriented research program focused on adolescent reproductive health, leveraging adolescents’ imagination, self-knowledge, and unique developmental stage.

Through the support of SFPRF, she plans to deepen her understanding of human-centered design and community-based participatory research methods to better advocate for equality and inclusiveness in her clinical work and research. Dr. Allison’s research program will elicit adolescent perspectives on their past experiences with reproductive health counseling in primary care, evaluate existing tools for reproductive goal setting and contraceptive counseling, and ultimately collaborate with adolescents to reimagine and redesign reproductive counseling in primary care.