Michelle A. Rainer, PhD, MSG

Michelle Rainer holds a PhD in Health Promotion Sciences and a MS in Gerontology.  Her primary research interests focus on the intersection of health with resilience, sleep, and social cohesion to improve health equity among older adults.  She is adjunct faculty in the School of Community and Global Health at Claremont Graduate University.  She has taught a variety of undergraduate and graduate courses on public health, ethics, organizational and leadership development, policy, and aging.

In addition, Dr. Rainer possess over 20 years in health care and aging.  She has held positions as the Deputy Director for Senior Programs at the Riverside County Office on Aging, Vice President at the St. Bernardine Medical Center, as well as consultant and board member to several non-profit organizations throughout Southern California. 

Dr. Rainer has been appointed to state and congressional committees on health care, in addition to serving as a delegate to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.  She was named a Women of Distinction for the Inland Empire in 2014.   She is the first women to graduate college in her family.

Rainer, M. A., Xie, B., Vaivao, D. E. S., Soakai, L., Jablonski, G. I., Delgado, C., Clague DeHart, J., & Palmer, P. H. (2024). Resilience and adversity among older Pacific Islanders in Southern California. Asian American Journal of Psychology, 15(4), 275–285. https://doi.org/10.1037/aap0000341

Rainer, M. A., Palmer, P. H., & Xie, B. (2023). Sleep duration and chronic disease among older Native Hawaiians or other Pacific Islanders: Analysis of the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities, 10(5), 2302–2311. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40615-022-01409-0