Kayla Karvonen MD, MAS, Receives 2025 Irene Perstein Award to Investigate Long-Term Health Outcomes in Black Preterm Infants
Kayla Karvonen MD, MAS, assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics, has been named a 2025 recipient of the Irene Perstein Award in recognition of her work investigating the social drivers of health outcomes among children born preterm.
The award will support Dr. Karvonen’s role as co-principal investigator of the BLOOM (Black Love Opportunity and Outcome improvement in Medicine) study, a research initiative rooted in community-engaged care. Partnering with the BLOOM Clinic—developed by Dayna Long, MD, and Javay Ross, MD—her work will evaluate how racially concordant, multidimensional pediatric care influences health outcomes for Black families.
“The Perstein Award allows for more stability in building my research program, including funding to support collaborators and staff,” said Dr. Karvonen. “And it allows time to acquire new research skills that will be critical to my development as an independent researcher."
The BLOOM Clinic, based at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland, builds on the federally qualified health center (FQHC) model and aims to reduce structural racism through care designed with, and delivered by, Black providers and families. Dr. Karvonen’s and Dr. Nicki Bush’s study seeks to understand families’ care experiences and health outcomes and compare them across both FQHC and BLOOM clinical settings.
The research will explore multiple layers of influence, including how racially concordant care affects engagement, satisfaction, and trust in the medical system. It will also examine the mental, developmental, and physical health outcomes of families and their children receiving primary care in the FQHC.
In addition, Dr. Karvonen will assess social drivers of health (SDH), such as access to food, housing, and education, among families with children born prematurely or hospitalized in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Findings from this study will lay the groundwork for a larger research effort focused on SDH and long-term health trajectories in this population.
“I come from a community that is overrepresented in critical illness and underrepresented in academic medicine,” said Dr. Karvonen. “As a biracial Black woman, my identities inspire, drive, and inform my research and clinical care.”
Established in 2007, the Irene Perstein Award honors the legacy of Irene Holmes Perstein, who left a bequest to support outstanding junior women scientists in the UCSF School of Medicine. Two additional UCSF faculty members, Charlotte Hurabielle Claverie, MD, PhD, and Marilyn Thomas, PhD, MPH, were also selected as 2025 Irene Perstein Award recipients.