Karin Valentine Goins

Program Director, Preventative and Behavioral Medicine
University of Massachusetts Medical School

Research and Background

Ms. Goins has a unique combination of training and experience in public health practice, research and community advocacy for active transportation. For nearly 20 years she has built connections at the state and local levels to understand and improve walking and bicycling conditions. She has often been the lone public health representative among transportation and land use officials and the sole member of a public health research team with practical understanding of how local land use and transportation processes shape the environment. She brings in professional and community voices to inform policy research and translate practitioner knowledge into more generalizable terms and, conversely, to disseminate findings to inform practice. Since 2009 she has collaborated with Dr. Stephenie Lemon of the University of Massachusetts Medical School/Prevention Research Center on active transportation research as a funded site in the US CDC’s Physical Activity Policy Research Network. They led a project that established views and experiences of municipal officials with local transportation and land use policy. They are currently completing a project to develop standards that local health departments can use in their strategic planning to increase their participation in local transportation and land use policy, and plan to develop training and technical assistance opportunities. Ms. Goins also provides technical assistance to a local health department to increase their capacity to participate in local land use and transportation policy. Her community efforts to make walking and bicycling in Worcester more safe, pleasant and convenient include educating state and local officials about Complete Streets, suggesting specific improvements to walking and bicycling facilities in engineering designs, and participating in traffic safety audits.