Adrianne Smiley, EdD, OTD, OTR/L (MSOT, 2015) is the kind of person who believes if you want to see change, the best way of going about it is by being the change you seek. For her, the inequalities in health care she can identify through her experience and dedication to her profession fuels her desire to continue to find new ways to advocate for equal healthcare opportunities for all.
“Any time you can advocate for a group or professional organization to effectuate change in society, that to me is one of the biggest acts of service,” said Smiley.
The Atlanta, Georgia, native attended UAB from 2013-2015. Smiley became the first UAB student to be accepted to the American Occupational Therapy Association’s (AOTA) Emerging Leaders program, where she was able to shadow and work with AOTA’s national officers.
“As students, we were encouraged to get involved with our national organizations. Our professors let us know that as aspiring clinicians, we have a voice and the way we advocate for what we want to see is by being involved, so I immediately joined AOTA,” said Smiley. “Community service was a part of our curriculum in the UAB OT master’s program, and I think it inspired a lot of us as students to be able to get that experience volunteering at outreach centers, women’s shelters, and the other groups within the local community."
After graduating from the UAB Master of Science in Occupational Therapy program, Smiley began working in home health and long-term care, in addition to furthering her education as a lifelong learner. From 2020-2021, she served as chairperson for the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Task Force for the AOTA, the first of its’ kind in the organization.
“During my time in the role, I met a lot of great people, and we developed a publication that served as an inclusion guide in the OT field,” said Smiley. “At the time, I didn’t really know how to write a publication because I had not yet completed my Ph.D. program, so I was just eager to learn and be involved.”
As a member of the Georgia Occupational Therapy Association (GOTA), in 2022, Smiley instructed the course, “Neuroethics and Abject Poverty: Occupational Therapy’s Role in Advocacy for Holistic Health.” The course was intended to help students learn how to improve their bond building skills and help better serve their patients.
In 2023, Smiley co-authored a DEI publication for the AOTA titled, “Combating health inequities.” That same year, she was a part of the American Occupational Therapy Foundation’s (AOTF) STRIDE Mentored Research Scholarship program as a mentee, mentored by Dr. Kathleen Lyons.
The pair developed a prospective analytical protocol for describing sociodemographic variations in cancer trial participation. Their goal is understanding why there is a lack of diversity in clinical trials in the cancer population.
Currently, Smiley is a full-time Ph.D. student at the University of Pittsburgh – her decision to pursue her Ph.D. largely comes from her desire to investigate the topics of ethics, laws, and equitable access to resources in health care.
“During the 2020 pandemic while I was working in home health, two of the hospitals that referred a lot of our patients to us closed and both hospitals primarily served patients with Medicaid,” said Smiley. “To know Georgia didn’t expand Medicaid and could’ve saved those hospitals, I was able to see first-hand how the closures negatively affected my patients, so I wanted to figure out ways I could put things like this in research so the evidence is there, and it can possibly make an impact on legislation.”
Upon completion of her Ph.D., Smiley plans to pursue a career in health services research using large data sets to address inequalities in health care.
“It fuels me to do my part in getting the information out there,” says Smiley. “I know I can’t save the world, but I can at least try to help swing the pendulum the right way.”
