Dr. Dionne-Odom's research focuses on the development, testing, and implementation of early palliative care telehealth interventions for underserved African American and rural-dwelling family caregivers of patients with newly diagnosed cancer. His intervention work is aimed at enhancing the stress management, coping, and serious illness co-management skills of family caregivers early in the course of advanced cancer so that they can navigate both current challenges and future ones as their care recipients approach end of life. Dr. Dionne-Odom is also interested in optimizing how family caregivers partner effectively with patients in health-related decision-making along the serious illness trajectory, including at end of life as surrogate decision-makers.

Dr. Dionne-Odom's newly funded study "Lay Coach-Led Early Palliative Care for Underserved Advanced Cancer Caregivers" is a randomized trial that tests the effectiveness of a lay navigator, palliative care coaching intervention (Project Cornerstone) for African American and/or rural-dwelling family caregivers of patients with newly diagnosed advanced cancer. Over a series of brief weekly telehealth sessions and monthly follow-up, family caregivers are taught and empowered to apply new skills in stress management, coping, self-care, symptom and medication co-management, and decision partnering. Unlike other interventions that rely on the strained workforce of licensed health professionals providing lengthy sessions over a brief duration, Project Cornerstone employs culturally savvy lay navigators to connect with and coach an underserved caregiver population continuously from diagnosis to end of life and bereavement.