Dr. Charles Jonassaint is an associate professor of medicine and a practicing clinical health psychologist with an MHS in epidemiology. He has clinical expertise in chronic disease self-management and cognitive behavioral therapy interventions and has had extensive experience working with health disparities populations, namely, adolescents and adults living with sickle cell disease. He completed his graduate training at Duke University and went on to do a masters in epidemiology and clinical research fellowship at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He currently has active funding through the NIMH, NHLBI, and the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute to lead a program of research focused on designing and testing evidence-based digital health interventions for pain and mental health among underserved populations. Dr. Jonassaint is an active X user: follow him at @drjonassaint.
Education & Training
- BA (Psychology), Minot State University, 2002
- PhD (Clinical Psychology), Duke University, 2009
- Internship, Duke University Medical Center, 2009
- MHS (Epidemiology), Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 2012
- Fellowship, Johns Hopkins University, 2013
Representative Publications
Jonassaint CR, Belnap BH, Huang Y, Karp JF, Abebe KZ, Rollman BL. Racial differences in the effectiveness of internet-delivered mental health care. Journal of General Internal Medicine. 2019.
In a secondary analysis of a three-arm randomized controlled clinical trial, we found that for African American patients, computerized cognitive behavioral therapy was associated with significant 6-month decease in depression and anxiety.
Jonassaint CR, Rao N, Sciuto A, Switzer GE, De Castro L, Kato GJ, Jonassaint JC, Hammal Z, Shah N, Wasan A. Abstract animations for the communication and assessment of pain in adults: cross-sectional feasibility study. Journal of Medical Internet Research. 2018;20(8):e10056.
Painimation, a tool that uses graphic illustrations and animations to assess pain quality, intensity, and course, may be a faster and more patient-centered method for assessing pain as it’s not limited by age, literacy, or language.
Jonassaint CR, Kang C, Abrams DM, Li JJ, Mao J, Jia Y, Long Q, Sanger M, Jonassaint JC, De Castro L, Shah N. Understanding patterns and correlates of daily pain using the Sickle cell disease Mobile Application to Record Symptoms via Technology (SMART). British Journal of Haematology. 2018;18 (2):306-308.
This study supports the use of a mobile e‐diary app to describe day‐to‐day patterns in sickle cell disease‐related pain symptoms and identify the clinical and demographic factors associated with differences in daily pain level among adult patients.
Jonassaint CR, Birenboim A, Jorgensen DR, Novelli EM, Rosso AL. The association of smartphone-based activity space measures with cognitive functioning and pain sickle cell disease. British Journal of Haematology. 2018;181(3):395-397.
Using technologies, such as GPS activity space, will be important in determining which patients are most in need of intervention and how patients respond to changes in treatment without patients having to record, track and recognize these symptoms themselves.
Click here for a more complete bibliography of Dr. Jonassaint’s works.
Research Interests
- Mobile health
- Behavioral health interventions
- Sickle cell disease
- Pain communication