Healthcare experiences and institutions
We examine how people experience, navigate, and evaluate care across clinical encounters and institutions.
TRUST Research Lab
Building trust where health, technology, and uncertainty meet.
We study how people navigate uncertainty within healthcare and how institutions can respond with greater accountability.
Healthcare•Caregiving•Responsible AI•Institutional Accountability
Our premise
Trust is built through
trustworthy systems.
TRUST Research Lab examines the relationships between people, institutions, and technologies. Our work moves beyond individual attitudes to investigate how systems demonstrate accountability, responsiveness, and ethical practice.
What we study
Research grounded in people.
Focused on systems.
We bring public health, social science, and community perspectives together to understand uncertainty and advance more responsive practice.
Caregiving and communication
We study how health professionals and informal caregivers share knowledge, make decisions, and navigate uncertainty together.
Responsible AI in healthcare
We investigate what patients, communities, and professionals need from responsible, transparent, and equitable health technologies.
Institutional accountability and equity
We translate lived experience into practical insight for organizations seeking to become more responsive, accountable, and equitable.
Current work
Questions that matter
beyond the page.
01
Caregiving
Strengthening nurses’ preparation to work with informal caregivers
Mixed-methods research identifying the knowledge, practices, and organizational conditions that support effective caregiver education.
View project 02Healthcare trust
How Black adults navigate bias and healthcare institutions
Research centered on self-advocacy, identity, healthcare experiences, and institutional responsibility for equitable care.
View project 03Emerging technology
Responsible AI implementation in healthcare
Studies of clinician and community expectations for oversight, transparency, communication, and responsible implementation.
View projectSelected scholarship
Evidence for better
systems and care.
2026
Featured publication
Trust at the intersections: Black women’s strategies for navigating bias, identity, and self-advocacy in health care
Toluwani E. Adekunle and colleagues · Ethnicity & Health
2026
Caregiver engagement
Nurses’ perspectives on trustworthy caregiver engagement in clinical settings: A qualitative study
Adekunle, T. E., Yonker, J. E., Olanrewaju, S., Frambes, D., & Dhaliwal, K. · Nursing Outlook, 74(3), 102753
2025
Reproductive justice
Reproductive coercion, medical mistrust, and Black women’s health from the antebellum period to the 21st century
Adekunle, T. · International Journal for Equity in Health, 24, 302
2025
Refugee women’s health
Beyond Knowledge: Trust and the Engagement of Newly Arrived Refugee Women in Cervical Cancer Prevention
Adekunle, T., Adekunle, T., & Afolabi, E. · Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health · Advance online publication
2025
Preventive care
Reconstructing trust in preventive care: Black women’s perspectives on equity-centered, cervical cancer interventions
Adekunle, T. E., Adekunle, T. B., & Thomas, S. · Ethnicity & Health, 1–18
Lab director
Toluwani E. Adekunle, PhD
Public health scholar · Health equity researcher · Systems thinker
Dr. Adekunle leads an interdisciplinary program of research focused on how people experience healthcare, caregiving, and emerging technology. Her work centers the knowledge of patients, caregivers, health professionals, and communities to identify practical pathways toward more responsive institutions.
Assistant Professor of Public Health, Calvin University
Research team
The people behind the work.
Work with us
Better systems are
built together.
We welcome conversations with researchers, practitioners, community organizations, students, and institutions committed to meaningful change.
Start a conversation