• Additional Titles:Research Associate, Dept of Family Medicine, BU Medical Campus
  • Education:BS in Occupational Therapy, Boston University, 2001
    MS in Occupational Therapy (post-professional), Boston University, 2003
    ScD in Therapeutic Studies, Boston University Sargent College, 2009
  • Office:635 Commonwealth Ave, SAR-543
  • Phone:617-353-7512 (email preferred)
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Leanne Yinusa-Nyahkoon, ScD, OTR/L, is an occupational therapist whose practice has focused on children with disabilities and chronic health conditions and their families, the majority of whom are from urban communities of color. Dr. Yinusa-Nyahkoon is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Occupational Therapy at Boston University, a Research Scientist in the Department of Family Medicine and a Research Associate in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, both within Boston University School of Medicine. Dr. Yinusa-Nyahkoon’s research focuses on examining health disparities that affect urban communities of color and the clients’, families’, providers’, and community’s perspectives of the inequities that impact health behavior and illness management. Her current funded research projects include Using Innovative Communication Technology to Improve the Health of Young African American and Black Women: The Gabby System. The Gabby System is a web-based health education system designed for young Black women that uses an embodied conversational agent to assess 150 preconception health needs, and deliver evidence-based interventions to facilitate health behavior change. Dr. Yinusa-Nyahkoon and her interprofessional research team are currently implementing the Gabby System at Healthy Start sites and community health centers across the United States. Dr. Yinusa-Nyahkoon’s research interests also include interprofessional care. As a qualitative expert, she is currently participating in a research project examining clients’, health professional trainees’, and health care providers’ perceptions of the interprofessional care experience within urban medical centers.

Scholarly and Practice Interests

  • Leanne Yinusa-Nyahkoon is a three time graduate of Boston University receiving her BS, MS, and ScD degrees at Sargent College. She has clinical experience as an occupational therapist treating individuals of all ages; however, her clinical expertise and passion is working with school-aged children.
  • Leanne’s research to date has focused on examining health disparities that disproportionately affect urban communities by understanding the family routines that impact health management. She currently serves as a research associate for a project titled, Using Innovative Communication Technology to Improve the Health of Young African American Women. Her research team, which includes researchers from Boston and Northeastern Universities, is examining young, African American female’s beliefs about preconception care, in an effort to develop a web-based health educational system that assesses health risks, delivers health interventions, and ultimately helps minimize the existing poor maternal and child health outcomes that plague the African American community.
  • Leanne has also integrated occupational therapy’s focus on occupations into this primary care intervention, and is interested in expanding occupational therapy’s role in primary care.

Courses Taught

BS in Behavior and Health courses

SAR HP310 Foundations of Health Promotion

Entry-level MS in Occupational Therapy courses

Publications

Lists of published works: Google Scholar 

Awards and Honors

  • Named to the American Occupational Therapy Association Roster of Fellows, 2023
  • MACE Foundation Fellowship, 2022
Departments
Occupational Therapy and Occupational Therapy
Positions
Clinical

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