Dr. Natasha Tonge received her B.A from Swarthmore College where she graduated with a special major in Biopsychology and a minor in Art History. She received her M.A. and PhD from Washington University in St. Louis. She completed clinical internship at the Minneapolis VA and Postdoctoral Fellowship at the VISN 5 MIRECC in Baltimore, Maryland.
Dr. Tonge’s current research is focused on trust/mistrust in patient-provider relationships, specifically for mental health service delivery and in healthcare contexts. She is interested in
1) how can mistrust and fear of negative evaluation in patient-provider relationships be assessed when mental health is a potential treatment target?
2) how is trust in the patient-provider relationship influenced by context - whether that be the type of treatment delivery (e.g., mHealth, telehealth, face-to-face) or type of provider relationship (e.g., nursing, physician, social worker, psychologist)?
Understanding how those with minoritized and/or stigmatized identities (e.g., racial/ethnic minorities, sexual/gender minorities, serious mental illness) experience trust in the patient-provider relationship is central to her research program.