Email

kathryn.kanzler@bcm.edu

Positions

Associate Professor (TT)

Medicine
Health Services Research
Baylor College of Medicine
Houston, Texas United States

Associate Adjunct Professor

Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences
University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio
San Antonio, Texas United States

Associate Professor (TT)

Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences; Family & Community Medicine
University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio
San Antonio, Texas United States

Assistant Professor (TT)

Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences; Family & Community Medicine
University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio
San Antonio, Texas United States

Education

PsyD from La Salle University

09/2007 - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania United States

Clinical Psychology

Internship at Wilford Hall Medical Center

08/2007 - JBSA-Lackland, San Antonio, Texas United States

American Psychological Association-accredited internship (residency) in Clinical Psychology

Postdoctoral Fellowship at Wilford Hall Medical Center

07/2011 - JBSA-Lackland, San Antonio, Texas United States

American Psychological Association & American Academy of Behavioral Sleep Medicine-Accredited Fellowship in Clinical Health Psychology

Certifications

Board Certification

#7241

American Board of Clinical Health Psychology

Licensed Psychologist

#37035 (02/01/2021)

Texas State Board of Examiners of Psychologists

Professional Interests

• Primary care behavioral health
• Focused Acceptance & Commitment Therapy
• Health Equity
• Dissemination & Implementation Science
• Chronic disease management
• Self-compassion

Professional Statement

My research focuses on increasing access to effective behavioral interventions for people with chronic diseases and health conditions. My primary research goal is to partner with community members to develop scalable interventions to help reduce health disparities and improve health equity and outcomes for diverse and underserved communities.

Websites

Funding

Acceptance Based Coping (ABaCo) Skills Delivered by Promotores for Hispanic/Latino Patients with T2DM - #1K23DK123398-01

$686,657.00 (09/10/2019 - 06/30/2025)

Grant funding from National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases/National Institutes of Health

This mentored patient-oriented research career development award aims to culturally adapt and test delivery of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy interventions delivered by community health workers (Promotores) for primary care Hispanic/Latinx patients with type 2 diabetes.

Supporting Access for Latinx Underserved in Diabetes Management (SALUD-M): An Equity-Driven Randomized Controlled Trial of Acceptance Based Coping Skills for Latinx Military Patients with T2DM - #7-23-ICTSBMH-04

$599,473.00 (07/01/2023 - 06/30/2026)

Grant funding from American Diabetes Association

- This project aims to establish an easy-to-access and effective program to support Latinx (Hispanic) military patients in their type 2 diabetes (T2D) self-management. We will use our Acceptance Based Coping (ABaCo) skills for diabetes program: a brief, culturally- tailored educational intervention delivered via telehealth. ABaCo was created in partnership with community health workers (“promotores”) to help address health disparities in Latinx communities, which often do not receive culturally- or contextually-appropriate diabetes care. In our ADA-funded project, we are partnering with Latinx U.S. military patients, who have worse outcomes than non-Latinx White military patients, to (1) tailor ABaCo to this new setting and population, (2) test the effectiveness of ABaCo compared to usual care, and (3) understand how to best deliver ABaCo in a military treatment facility. Our goal is that ABaCo, delivered by bilingual Latinx health coaches, will lead to improved quality of life, glycemic control and coping skills, with reduced diabetes-related distress.

Supporting Acceptance for Living with Unwanted Thoughts and Experiences in Chronic Pain (SALUTE-CP) for Veterans

$49,990.00 (10/01/2023 - 09/30/2024)

Grant funding from Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center

The goal of this project is to establish a paraprofessional-delivered, telehealth-based educational program for Veterans with chronic pain (CP): Supporting Acceptance for Living with Unwanted Thoughts and Experiences in CP (SALUTE-CP). We will follow an evidence-based framework for adapting interventions to new settings. In Aim 1, we will adapt the SALUTE-CP program from our previously established focused Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for CP educational group protocol; and in Aim 2, we will assess SALUTE-CP in a pilot study, to examine acceptability, fidelity, recruitment and retention, and to examine potential improvement on primary (pain-related disability, pain interference) and secondary (engagement in valued activities, pain self-efficacy, emotional distress, quality of life) outcomes.

Supporting Acceptance for Living with Uncomfortable Thoughts and Experiences in Chronic Pain (SALUTE-CP) for Active Duty Servicemembers - #HT94252411063

$370,957.00 (11/01/2024 - 10/31/2026)

Grant funding from Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs/Department of Defense

This project, in partnership with Maj John Blue Star, PhD, ABPP, USAF (Co-PI), aims to adapt and preliminarily test a Behavioral Health Technician (BHT)-delivered, telehealth-based educational program for military beneficiaries with chronic pain. Our goal is to learn if service members receiving the SALUTE-CP program will have better functioning and less pain interference in daily life. We will work closely with our partner advisory board throughout the project. Initially, we will tailor our intervention with input from BHTs and patients with chronic pain (qualitative data) and then we will conduct a mixed-methods, single-arm, pre-post pilot study (N=30). The SALUTE-CP program has potential to increase access to self-management training for military service members with chronic pain, especially for those who are worried about stigma from seeking formal behavioral health care and those with challenging duty hours, pain-related disabilities, or transportation difficulties (e.g., in rural, “geographically separated units”) making it harder to access in-person treatments. SALUTE-CP could improve overall functioning and military readiness for active-duty service members and provide access to an effective nonclinical education program for chronic pain, which could be shared broadly across military and civilian healthcare settings.