Lu Hu, PhD

Dr. Lu Hu is a behavioral scientist and an Associate Professor in the Department of Population Health at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. Her research primarily focuses on developing and testing scalable, technology-based interventions to increase access to evidence-based interventions and improve health outcomes for patients with chronic conditions. 

Dr. Hu received an NIH-funded K99/R00 award to examine the feasibility, acceptability, and potential efficacy of a culturally and linguistically tailored social media-based intervention to improve access to an evidence-based diabetes intervention among low-income patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D). She is also leading another extramurally funded P30 pilot award to examine the feasibility of a family-based mobile health (mHealth) intervention in patients with T2D. Recently, she received two R01-level grants to examine the effectiveness and implementation of a multi-level mHealth intervention to improve glycemic control among patients with uncontrolled T2D. 

In addition, Dr. Hu has extensive experience in serving as a co-investigator or collaborator on multiple NIH or foundation-supported grants. For example, she was a co-investigator on an Aetna-funded study using a mHealth intervention (e.g., text messages) to remotely titrate insulin regimens in low-income patients with uncontrolled T2D. Dr. Hu has also been actively collaborating on a recently completed R01 study that evaluated the efficacy of 3 technology-supported approaches to help individuals with T2D and concurrent chronic kidney disease make lifestyle changes. More recently, she has been collaborating in two R01-level initiatives to examine the effect of a machine learning based personalized nutrition intervention on weight loss and diabetes management. 

Dr. Hu’s work has been recognized by multiple awards and honors, including a 2021 American Diabetes Association Young Investigator Award, a 2017 NYU Grossman School of Medicine Outstanding Postdoc Award, and a 2016 NIMHD Health Disparities Research Institute Scholar. 

In summary, Dr. Hu has extensive experience in improving access to chronic disease care, digital/mHealth interventions, lifestyle interventions, and community engagement research. She has methodological expertise in the cultural adaptation of evidence-based interventions, clinical trials, mixed-methods research, community-based participatory research, and systematic reviews and meta-analyses.