The Behavioral Health Equity Advancement Lab (B-HEAL) at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School was founded in 2020 by Dr. Ayorkor Gaba.

B-HEAL’s work is driven by community engaged research and practice and aims to understand how individual, community and structural factors impact mental health, substance use and misuse, and individual and community wellbeing. 

Priority populations in our current projects include: people who use substances, people in recovery, people and families in and impacted by the criminal legal and the child welfare system, women, and ethnically/racially minoritized individuals and families. 

Our work has been funded through grants from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, UMass Center for Clinical and Translational Science (UMCCTS), Massachusetts Executive Office of the Trial Court, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), and others.

To learn more about our projects, click here.