Dr. Parker's research focuses on the development, implementation and evaluation of community-based participatory interventions to improve health status. Her current research is focused primarily in Detroit, Michigan, where she is involved in community-based participatory research projects focusing on women's and children's health and on childhood asthma and issues of environmental justice. Dr. Parker's work also focuses on methods of better understanding and operationalizing measures of community social dynamics, such as community capacity an community competence.

In July 2005, she became Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the University of Michigan School of Public Health.