Dr. Tricia Tang

Dr. Tricia Tang is an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine, Division of Endocrinology at the University of British Columbia Faculty of Medicine. She is also a behavioral scientist and registered clinical psychologist with an expertise in diabetes translation research in high-risk and medically underserved populations. Over the past 18 years, she has focused on developing, implementing, and evaluating low-cost and sustainable peer support interventions for improving long-term diabetes-related health outcomes. These interventions have been tested in ethnically diverse groups including African-American, Spanish-speaking Latino (Detroit, MI), and Punjabi-speaking South Asian adults with type 2 diabetes (Vancouver, BC) living in North America and have been translated across different contexts including community-based, primary care-based, specialty care-based, and faith-based settings. Her work in peer leader training is nationally and internationally recognized as she co-developed a peer leader training manual that has been endorsed by the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) and is available for download on their website. She has conducted peer leader training workshops and given presentations all over the world including the United States, China, Canada, Australia, Malaysia, Hungary, and India. She have also received grants from the IDF, American Association of Family Physicians Foundation, VGH-UBC Hospital Foundation, Vancouver Foundation, Diabetes Canada, Lawson Foundation, Michael Smith Foundation, Sun-Life Financial, and the National Institutes of Health to test the effectiveness of these peer support models. Her Diabetes Canada-funded peer support study was featured in the 2014 publication, Diabetes Discovery – on the “timeline of diabetes research milestones” in Canada. Recently, Dr. Tang’s research has expanded to diabetes prevention in South Asian children and families reducing diabetes distress in the type 1 diabetes community using a social media-delivered intervention. Currently, she is investigating the impact of an after-school Bhangra intervention on improving physical activity and fitness in South Asian children ages 8-11 and promoting healthy approaches to cooking with South Asian children and their parents.