Associate Professor Dr. Michael Thompson serves as the Interim Chair of the newly created Department of Health Management and Policy. Most recently, he served as Associate Chair of the Department of Public Health Sciences and Director UNC Charlotte’s CAHME-accredited and nationally ranked MHA Program. He previously served as the Associate Director of the Academy for Population Health Innovation (APHI), a unique partnership between Mecklenburg County Public Health and UNC Charlotte, and Director of UNC Charlotte’s CEPH-accredited MPH program and the graduate programs in Health Informatics and Analytics. He has over 20 years’ experience in actively developing, leading, and seeing accredited public health and health administration programs domestically and internationally.
Dr. Thompson earned his DrPH in 2002 from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, specializing in Health Services Research and Evaluation through the Department of Health Policy and Management. His professional practice focuses on competency-based workforce development and assessment as well as community-driven programmatic interventions.
Through his competency-based, global workforce development initiatives, he currently serves as an Adjunct Associate Professor of Public Health and external advisory board member at the American University of Armenia, Yerevan, Armenia. Past efforts have included serving as a Visiting Associate Professor of Public Health at King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and supporting public health and health administration program development in Pakistan and Lebanon, among other locations.
Education
| 2002 | The Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD | Doctor of Public Health, Department of Health Policy & Management (Faculty of Health Services Research & Evaluation) Dissertation: Ideation: A Theory Based Evaluation of the Green Path Campaign for Reproductive Health, Armenia, 2000. Advisor: Professor Ellen J. MacKenzie, PhD |
| 1988 | The University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD | Master of Science, Emergency Health Services (Administration, Policy, and Planning) |
| 1986 | The Johns Hopkins University School of Arts & Sciences, Baltimore, MD | Bachelor of Arts, Biology |
Research Interests
Focused research on three inter-related thematic areas:
1) Community-driven identification of problems
2) Program development and evaluation
3) Professional public health and health administration workforce development.
Awards & Honors
| Staff Recognition Award | 1995, Presented by Student Assembly, Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg School of Public Health |
| Honorary Membership | 2002, American University of Armenia Alumni Association (recognition for service to the students and the university) |
| Member | 2002, Elected to Alpha Chapter (Johns Hopkins University) of Delta Omega, the national public health honorary society (lifetime member) |
| Member | 2005, Elected to Mu Chapter of Phi Beta Delta, honor society for international scholars; 2011-2013 Executive Board member, 2013-2015 President |
| Founding Member | 2010, Beta Phi Chapter (UNC Charlotte) of Delta Omega, the national public health honorary society.
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| Member | 2021, Upsilon Phi Delta, UNC Charlotte Graduate Chapter, the health administration honorary society |
Selected Publications
Program Development and Evaluation
Wally MK, Thompson ME, Odum S, Kazemi DM, Hsu JR, Seymour RB, PRIMUM Group. Opioid Prescribing for Chronic Musculoskeletal Conditions: Trends Over Time and Implementation of Safe Opioid Prescribing Practices. Applied Clinical Informatics 2023;14(5):961–972; doi.org/10.1055/s-0043-1776879.
Wally MK, Thompson ME, Odum S, Kazemi DM, Hsu JR, Seymour RB, PRIMUM Group. Adherence to Legislation Limiting Opioid Prescription Duration Following Musculoskeletal Injury. J Opioid Manag; 2023; 19(7), pp. 103-15, doi:10.5055/jom.2023.0804.
Wally MK, Thompson ME, Odum S, Kazemi D, Hsu JR, Seymour RB, PRIMUM Group. Changes in opioid prescription duration for musculoskeletal injury associated with the North Carolina Strengthen Opioid Misuse Prevention (STOP) Act. Pain Medicine. Published online 21 March 2023; doi: 10.1093/pm/pnad036.
Khachadourian V, Truzyan N, Harutyunyan A, Petrosyan V, Davtyan H, Davtyan K, van den Boom M; Thompson ME. TB treatment in continuation phase: Cluster randomized trial comparing people-centered care to clinic-based DOT. BMC Pulmonary Medicine; 2020(20)105. doi: 10.1186/s12890-020-1141-y
Hutchison J, Thompson ME, Troyer J, Elnitsky C, Coffman M, Thomas, ML. The effect of North Carolina free clinics on hospitalizations for ambulatory care sensitive conditions among the uninsured. BMC Health Services Research. 2018 18:280; doi: 10.1186/s12913-018-3082-1
Khachadourian V, Truzyan N, Harutyunyan A, Thompson ME, Harutyunyan T, Petrosyan V. People-Centered Tuberculosis Care versus Standard Directly Observed Therapy: Study Protocol for a Clustered Randomized Controlled Trial. Trials; 2015: 16:281; doi: 10.1186/s13063-015-0802-2.
Harutyuan TL, Demirchyan A, Thompson ME, Petrosyan V. Primary health care facility performance assessment in Armenia. Leadership in Health Services, 2010, 23(2):141-155 doi: 10.1108/17511871011040724.
Thompson ME, Harutyunyan TL. Impact of a community-based integrated management of childhood illnesses (IMCI) programme in Gegharkunik, Armenia. Health Policy and Planning, 2009;1–7; doi:10.1093/heapol/czn048. Published online January 15, 2009.
Thompson ME, Harutyunyan TL. Contraceptive practices in Armenia: Panel evaluation of an Information-Education-Communication Campaign. Social Science & Medicine, 2006; 63(11):2770-2783 (available online September 2006).
Problem Identification
Thompson ME, Dulin MF. Leveraging Data Analytics to Advance Personal, Population, and System Health: Moving Beyond Merely Capturing Services Provided. North Carolina Medical Journal July-August 2019 vol. 80 no. 4 214-218; doi: 10.18043/ncm.80.4.214.
Fos EB, Thompson ME, Elnitsky CA, Platonova EA. Did Performing Community Health Needs Assessments Increase Community Health Programs Spending of North Carolina’s Tax-Exempt Hospitals?. Population Health Management. 20 November 2018, https://doi.org/10.1089/pop.2018.0140.
Fos EB, Thompson ME, Elnitsky CA, Platonova EA. Community Benefit Spending Among North Carolina’s Tax-Exempt Hospitals After Performing Community Health Needs Assessments. Journal of Public Health Management and Practice. 14 February 2019; doi: 10.1097/PHH.0000000000000921.
Grigoryan R, Thompson ME, Crape B, Hekimian K. Explaining Women’s High Satisfaction with Objectively Poor Quality Childbirth Services: Armenia as a Case Study. Health Care for Women International P2015 j; 36(1): 121-134. doi10.1080/07399332.2014.946507. Epub 08 Oct 2014
Demichyan A, Petrosyan V, Thompson ME. Gender differences in predictors of self-rated health in Armenia: a population-based study of an economy in transition. International Journal for Equity in Health; 2012; 11:67; doi:10.1186/1475-9276-11-67.
Demichyan A, Petrosyan V, Thompson ME. Psychometric value of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CES-D) scale for screening of depressive symptoms in Armenian Population. J Affect Disord. 2011; 133: 489-98; doi:10.1016/j.jad.2011.04.042.
Artikova V. Thompson ME, Platonova E, Pyle GF, Saimatov T. Trends in traffic crashes and injuries in The Republic of Kyrgyzstan, 2003-2007. Bulletin of the World Health Organization; 2011; 89:345–351; doi:10.2471/BLT.10.084434.
Workforce Development
Platonova EA, Venkitasubramanian K, Thompson ME. Employee Job Satisfaction at Florida For-Profit and Not-For-Profit Hospitals. Journal of Hospital Administration 2020; 9(2): 33-40; doi 10.5430/jha.v9n2
Thompson ME, Dulin MF. Leveraging Data Analytics to Advance Personal, Population, and System Health: Moving Beyond Merely Capturing Services Provided. North Carolina Medical Journal July-August 2019 vol. 80 no. 4 214-218; doi: 10.18043/ncm.80.4.214.
Thompson ME, Harutyunyan TL, Dorian AH. A first aid training course for primary health care providers in Nagorno Karabagh: Assessing knowledge retention. Prehospital and Disaster Medicine; December 2012; 27(6): 509-514; doi:10.1017/S1049023X1200132X.
Thompson, ME, Dorian, AH, Harutyunan, TL. Identifying priority healthcare trainings in frozen conflict situations: The case of Nagorno Karabagh. Conflict and Health, 2010; 4(21), doi:10.1186/1752-1505-4-2.
Armenian HK, Thompson ME. Competency-based curriculum in epidemiology. In Teaching epidemiology: A guide for teachers in epidemiology, public health and clinical medicine. Jorn Olsen, Rodolfo Saracci and Dimitrios Trichopoulos (eds.) third edition, Chapter 30:508-518. Oxford University Press, Oxford, U.K. 2010.
Thompson ME, Harver A, Eure M. A model for integrating strategic planning and competence-based curriculum design in establishing a public health programme: the UNC Charlotte experience. Human Resources for Health, 2009; 7:71, doi:10.1186/1478-4491-7-71. Published online August 11, 2009.
Thompson ME, Petrosyan V. Parallel Processing – ASPHER PEER Assessment and WASC Accreditation in the College of Health Sciences, American University of Armenia. Internet Journal of Public Health Education. Posted 9 May 2007
Eastham JN, Jr, Thompson ME, Ryan PA. Treatment and career attitudes of prehospital care providers associated with potential exposure to HIV/AIDS. The American Journal of Emergency Medicine, 1991; 9(2): 122-126.
Thompson ME, Eastham JN, Jr. Prehospital providers’ AIDS knowledge and attitudes. The Maryland Medical Journal, 1989; 38(12):2-12.
Please visit RESEARCH GATE for a full listing of Dr. Thompson’s publications.
Visit Dr. Michael Thompson’s LinkedIn Page.
Link Dr. Michael Thompson’s full Curriculum Vitae.
