Robbins earns research paper award

For Christopher Robbins, assistant professor of allied and population health in South Dakota State University’s College of Pharmacy and Allied Health Professions, research has always been a collective endeavor.

Throughout his career, Robbins has built a reputation not only for methodological rigor, but also for a strong commitment to collaboration and mentorship, particularly with students and early career scholars.

That focus was recently recognized when the American Academy of Health Behavior honored Robbins and his colleagues with the 2025 Paper of the Year award.

Robbins’ research career began in 2006 at Indiana University, where he worked on a major Department of Defense-funded longitudinal study examining long-term health outcomes among veterans with war‑related amputations. The findings, Robbins said, helped inform how the Department of Defense supports injured service members. The work also showcased Robbins’ collaborative approach to interdisciplinary, team‑driven public health research.

That approach continued at the University of Michigan Medical School, where Robbins worked across an array of specialties and frequently served as a bridge between clinicians and researchers, supporting projects from study design through analysis. His strength in biostatistics and research methods made him a trusted collaborator and methodological mentor. Today, he regularly works with faculty and students, often serving as a sounding board for study design and analytic strategy.

His “Paper of the Year” grew out of one such experience.

The paper, “Impact of One‑Way SMS Health Communication to Increase PrEP Uptake in Non‑HIV STI Testing Patients: A Pre‑Post Intervention Study,” originated as the capstone project of Aruna Rajmohan, who earned her Master of Public Health from SDSU in 2023 and now works at the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. Other collaborators on the paper included Aaron Hunt of Utah State University and Tri Luong of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation.

Robbins’ work at SDSU connects rigorous analysis with practical public health outcomes. The Paper of the Year award highlights the kind of collaborative research Robbins has prioritized throughout his career and continues to advance at SDSU.