Research and Teaching Interests

Dr. Wilcox’s research is focused on promoting physical activity and dietary change in adult underserved populations, particularly in African Americans, women, and older adults. For the past 20 years, she has worked with community and clinical organizations to develop, implement, and evaluate behavioral, theory-based interventions that are delivered via community- and clinical-based settings. For example, she has been conducting research and publishing in the area of faith-based health behavior interventions since 2002. Multiple studies have used a community-based participatory approach to meet the needs of under resourced communities. Dr. Wilcox also has experience conducting large-scale evaluations of health behavior change interventions. She has both current and completed projects funded by the National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of Defense, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. She teaches courses in areas that overlap with her research emphases – while at USC, she developed and has taught EXSC 410, Psychology of Physical Activity and EXSC 710, Behavioral Aspects of Physical Activity.