Karen Comer

Karen Frederickson Comer is director of collaborative research and health geoinformatics for The Polis Center. In this role, she fosters research partnerships and community collaborations to advance the application of community information and spatial technologies to the analysis of local, state and national health issues.

Comer is co-lead of the Indiana Partnership for Healthy Communities and is actively working with hospitals, health departments and community-based organizations to build capacity for evidence-driven community assessment and planning. She is dedicated to translating knowledge generated both by the academy and by communities into improved and sustainable processes for understanding issues relating to community health and for enhancing the health of communities.

Areas of Expertise

Population health systems and services, including community health needs assessment, implementation strategy development and program evaluation; public health systems and services, including community health assessment, community health improvement planning and program evaluation; community health information systems, including development of measures of community health and social determinants of health.

Other Information