About

Christina Cutshaw is an Assistant Professor of Practice, Director of the Family and Child Health Program, and Director of MEZCOPH Online at the University of Arizona. She is based in Tucson, Arizona, and is actively involved in public health education and community engagement. Her academic and professional focus is on family and child health, with an emphasis on health promotion and community-based health initiatives. Dr. Cutshaw's work includes leadership roles in programs that aim to improve health outcomes through education, outreach, and research, particularly within diverse communities. She maintains a strong connection to Indigenous health and regional health issues, contributing to the university's efforts to build sustainable relationships with Native Nations and Indigenous communities.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Psychology
• Developmental psychology
• Medicine
• Pedagogy
• Medical education
• Social psychology
• Mathematics education

Selected publications

• Speech-language service utilization by families with young children: The role of social determinants of health

  Journal of Communication Disorders · 2026-05-01

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Environmental Factors Predicting Young Children’s Secure Exploration

  Early Childhood Education Journal · 2024-04-12 · 1 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Evidence on the ecological and physical effects of built structures in shallow, tropical coral reefs: a systematic map

  Environmental Evidence · 2024-05-14 · 5 citations

  articleOpen access

  BACKGROUND: Shallow, tropical coral reefs face compounding threats from climate change, habitat degradation due to coastal development and pollution, impacts from storms and sea-level rise, and pulse disturbances like blast fishing, mining, dredging, and ship groundings that reduce reef height and complexity. One approach toward restoring coral reef physical structure from such impacts is deploying built structures of artificial, natural, or hybrid (both artificial and natural) origin. Built structures range from designed modules and repurposed materials to underwater sculptures and intentionally placed natural rocks. Restoration practitioners and coastal managers increasingly consider incorporating - and in many cases have already begun to incorporate - built structures into coral reef-related applications, yet synthesized evidence on the ecological (coral-related; e.g., coral growth, coral survival) and physical performance of built structures in coral ecosystems across a variety of contexts (e.g., restoration, coastal protection, mitigation, tourism) is not readily available to guide decisions. To help fill this gap and inform management decisions, we systematically mapped the global distribution and abundance of published evidence on the ecological (coral-related) and physical performance of built structure interventions in shallow (≤ 30 m), tropical (35°N to 35°S) coral ecosystems. METHODS: To identify potentially relevant articles, we used predefined and tested strategies to search two indexing platforms, one bibliographic database, two open discovery citation indexes, one web-based search engine, one novel literature discovery tool, 19 organizational websites, and information requested from stakeholders. Discovered articles were screened according to preset eligibility criteria first by title and abstract and second by full text. Articles included during full text screening were coded to extract metadata following a predefined framework. We analyzed and visualized the evidence base to answer our primary and secondary research questions and to identify knowledge clusters and gaps. Findings are reported in a narrative synthesis. RESULTS: Our search discovered > 20,000 potentially relevant unique articles, of which 258 were included in the systematic map. The evidence base spans 50 countries, and the volume of evidence increased over the past five decades. Built structures were most commonly installed for coral restoration (61%) or coastal protection (12%). Structures were predominately characterized as artificial (87%), with fewer hybrid or natural interventions. Evidence clusters existed for intentionally designed artificial structures and outcomes associated with coral-related ecological performance, including coral mortality, growth, recruitment, cover, and diversity. Pronounced evidence gaps occurred at the intersection of several ecological coral-related performance outcomes (e.g., connectivity, microbiome) across all types of built structures; gaps also existed across most ecological coral-related outcomes for artwork and repurposed artificial structures. Physical performance of built structures was most frequently evaluated for outcomes related to waves (n = 14) and sediment and morphology (n = 11) with pervasive evidence gaps across other outcomes like storm surge and water level. CONCLUSIONS: While the systematic map highlighted several evidence clusters, it also revealed pronounced evidence gaps surrounding the coral-related ecological and physical performance of built structures in coral ecosystems. The compiled evidence base will help inform policy, management, and future consideration of built structures in reef-related applications, including habitat restoration, environmental mitigation, and coastal protection. Map findings also point to promising future research avenues, such as investigating seascape-scale ecological effects of and the physical performance of built structures.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Health Characteristics and Birth Outcomes for “Starting Out Right,” a Teen Pregnancy Program

  Maternal and Child Health Journal · 2023-05-30 · 1 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• In Support of a Public Health Approach to Late Talking

  American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology · 2023-04-28 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  PURPOSE: This article aims to support and extend Di Sante and Potvin's (2022) viewpoint, "We Need to Talk About Social Inequalities in Language Development," by providing additional detail on a proposed public health approach to language development and late talking specifically. A public health approach can be a model for the field of speech-language pathology to improve child language across social gradients and reduce inequities in late talking. METHOD: A public health approach is defined and compared to the clinical approach. A proposal for how a public health approach could be applied to address inequities in late talking is described. CONCLUSIONS: A public health approach merits consideration by leaders and institutions in the field of speech-language pathology. This approach draws attention to the role of social determinants of language development and the need to address structures and systems that not only support clinical intervention to address disorders but also that focus on prevention of late talking and promotion of healthy language development. A public health approach requires engaging stakeholders outside the field of speech-language pathology, thus strengthening opportunities for progress.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Hispanic Ethnicity and Cervical Cancer Precursors Among Low-Income Women in Arizona

  International Journal of Women s Health · 2021-10-01 · 11 citations

  articleOpen access

  PURPOSE: In the United States, Hispanics are more likely to be diagnosed with cervical cancer compared to Non-Hispanic Whites. Annually, 250,000 to 1 million women are diagnosed with a precursor to CC. The aim of this study was to assess whether Hispanics have a higher prevalence of cervical dysplasia compared to Non-Hispanics Whites among a population of low-income women. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We analyzed the results of 10,911 cervical cytology tests administered between 2003 and 2016 that were funded through the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) program for low-income, uninsured women entitled the National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program (NBCCEDP). In the state of Arizona, the program is called the Well Women HealthCheck Program (WWHP). Logistic regression was used to identify increased risk of dysplasia, including low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (LSIL) and high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (HSIL/ICC), and multinomial logistic regression was used to assess increased likelihood for LSIL and HSIL/ICC as separate categories. RESULTS: In the crude analysis, Hispanic ethnicity was modestly associated with higher prevalence of LSIL (odds ratio (OR)=1.39, 95% CI=1.01-1.91), but this association was not statistically significant after adjusting for confounders. However, in the final models, lower income was independently associated with LSIL (adjusted odds ratio [aOR]=1.55, 95% CI=1.30-1.44), while smoking (aOR=2.88, 95% CI=1.21-6.84) and no history of Pap test within five years (aOR=3.54, 95% CI=1.61-6.99) were independently associated with HSIL. CONCLUSION: After adjusting for confounding in a sample of low-income women with comparable Pap screening rates, ethnicity was not associated with greater prevalence of abnormal pap smears. However, other variables were independently associated with LSIL and HSIL. The higher proportion of LSIL cases among lower income individuals compared to those with higher incomes, and the higher proportion of HSIL cases observed among those screened least regularly stresses the importance of programs like WWHP: programs that target low-income, uninsured women. These programs help save lives.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Influences of Parent Engagement in Early Childhood Education Centers and the Home on Kindergarten School Readiness

  Early Childhood Research Quarterly · 2020 · 104 citations

  • Developmental psychology
  • Psychology
  • Medical education
  PublisherDOI

• Validating the Research-Based Early Math Assessment (REMA) among rural children in Southwest United States

  Studies In Educational Evaluation · 2020 · 9 citations

  • Political Science
  • Psychology
  • Mathematics education
  PublisherDOI

• Parent engagement in early care and education settings: relationship with engagement practices and child, parent, and centre characteristics

  Early Child Development and Care · 2020 · 11 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Psychology
  • Developmental psychology

  Parent engagement in early care and education (ECE) settings is a component of high quality childcare, yet little is known about mechanisms of parent engagement in centre-based care. Using a nationally representative U.S. sample, we examined centre, classroom, and teacher characteristics associated with practices ECE providers use to engage parents, and the association between these practices and parent engagement at ECE centre-based programmes. Centres with lower adult-to-child ratios, more health and developmental services, fewer meal subsidies, more time spent in reading activities, and longer teacher tenure utilized more parent engagement practices. Parents engaged more at ECE centres that had higher levels of engagement practices, accepted subsidies, were not preschool programmes, and had teachers who believed children should learn to read in kindergarten. Additional research is needed to identify characteristics that contribute to variation in use of ECE engagement practices and policies that increase parent engagement.

  PublisherDOI

• Are Young Children’s Emotional and Behavioral Risk Factors Associated with Household Firearm Ownership and Storage?

  Journal of Education and Human Development · 2020-01-01

  articleOpen access

  Journal of Anthropology and Archaeology is a peer-reviewed international journal, which publishes original papers promoting theoretical, methodological and empirical developments in the discipline of socio-cultural anthropology.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Adriana D. Cimetta

  University of Arizona

  7 shared

• Ronald W. Marx

  University of Arizona

  7 shared

• David B. Yaden

  University of Arizona

  5 shared

• Sarah Lynn Neiling

  University of Arizona

  4 shared

• Steffie Woolhandler

  City University of New York

  3 shared

• Ghadah S. Alkhadim

  Taif University

  3 shared

• David U. Himmelstein

  Cambridge Health Alliance

  3 shared

• Melissa A. Barnett

  The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

  2 shared

Education

• PhD, Mental Health

  Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health

  2004

• B.A.

  Emory University

  1990

Awards & honors

• 25th Anniversary Gala Sponsorship Opportunities
• Remembering Mel Zuckerman
• Dean's Fund for Excellence
• Alumni Giving Circle
• Alumni Engagement Host an Event