Welcome to the Black Health Lab!

About Us

We are a research group united by our passion for informing efforts to achieve health equity, wellness, and thriving for Black people in the United States. 

We are currently focused on understanding how online environments, social media, and technology provide both challenges and opportunities for Black young adult health and development. We apply developmentally and culturally-centered social health psychological theories of stress and coping to understand online race-related positive and negative experiences on psychophysiological functioning, health behaviors, cardiovascular risk, and intersections between mental and physical health.

Where We're Headed

We are working to unite understandings of structural and institutional exposures to anti-Black racism online with health outcomes and assets of Black young adult communities. We aim to develop interventions that will generate actionable solutions to alleviate the health burdens of online anti-Black racism by leveraging the agency, assets, and perspectives of Black young adults. Although online environments and technology can pose health risks of exposure to racism, they can also be empowering and affirming.

What have we been up to? 

Learn more about our projects and publications!

You can also follow us on Twitter and instagram: @BlackHealthLab

Learn more about our team

Are you a potential PhD student?

Are you interested in applying to get a PhD under Dr. Volpe's mentorship at NCSU?

The first question you should ask yourself is: Are your research interests a match? 

The Venn diagram provides a visual of the central components of our lab's research to help you answer that question. 

Learn more about the program and applying here.


We focus specifically on the experiences of Black people (inclusive of individuals across the African diaspora, such as African American, Caribbean Black, Afro-Latinx, African, and Bi-/multi-racial identified individuals) in the United States.

We work to inform efforts to reduce racial health disparities through research. As a laboratory, we conduct both basic and applied research. We focus on physical health and health behaviors, in line with a social health psychology approach. We do examine intersections between mental and physical health, but we are not a mental health-focused laboratory. We do community-engaged research, but we are not a community or clinical psychology practice laboratory. 

The Black Health Lab was founded by Dr. Vanessa Volpe at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2014. It has since moved (with Dr. Volpe) from UNC-CH to Ursinus College to NC State.