Karen Lincoln
Assistant Professor

Research often holds the key to improving lives. Karen Lincoln is a researcher and an assistant professor in the School of Social Work. And she is the first person in the School to receive the prestigious “K” Award, a five-year research award from the National Institute of Mental Health.

Karen is trying to understand why older African Americans are more likely to suffer depression than their Caucasian counterparts, and less likely to get help. She wants to know because she wants to do something about it.

Older African American men and women are more apt to be poor and to live in distressed neighborhoods than older white Americans, Karen says. The daily long-term strain that attends poverty — crime, the lack of medical care and other services, despair— takes its toll. Discrimination plays its part, creating barriers and leaving motional wounds.

What is the best way to reach older African Americans who may need help? The solution may lie close to home. “It’s often the pastor, the owner of the barber shop or beauty salon — the natural helpers in the neighborhood — who are trusted and more likely to offer help in a way that people can accept,” she explains. “I want to know how we can better use these institutions and neighbors to get information and services to elders.”