Natasha Tonge, Ph.D.

Dr. Natasha Tonge is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology (Clinical Psychology Program). She received her Ph.D. from Washington University in St. Louis in 2020. 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 studying how to best assess mistrust and fear of negative evaluation in patient-provider relationships when mental health is a potential treatment target as well as how trust in the patient-provider relationship is influenced by context. With regard to the latter, she studies whether the type of treatment delivery (e.g., mHealth, telehealth, face-to-face) or type of provider relationship (e.g., nursing, physician, social worker, psychologist) influence patient-provider trust. 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 also central to her research program.