Dr. McKinley’s funded research focuses on centering sex and gender differences while promoting health equity for Indigenous peoples (American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiians). As a lead editor on a special issue and associated book entitled, “Indigenous Health Equity and Wellness,” she is a leader conducting community engaged and culturally grounded health equity research. After a decade of work on violence against Indigenous women and families and associated disparities, her clinical trial research focuses on developing and testing a culturally relevant and family centered intervention (the Weaving Healthy Families, or Chukka Achaffi’ Natana Program). This program promotes health and wellness while preventing the underlying causes of premature mortality and morbidity among Indigenous peoples, namely alcohol and other drug use and violence. Along with examining sex differences related to the effect and uptake of this intervention that incorporates mhealth, sex differences related to social determinants of health related to cardiovascular, cancer, diabetes, and other chronic health problems are focal to this work. She led the development of the Indigenous-based and ecological “Framework of Historical Oppression, Resilience, and Transcendence (FHORT)”, which identifies, and culturally relevant risk and protective factors related to wellness across community, family, and individual levels from a relational perspective. This framework was chosen for inclusion in the edited book, Grand Challenges for Society: Evidence-Based Social Work Practice, and her work has also been highlighted as Best Paper by the Journal of Ethnic and Cultural Diversity in Social Work in 2018, "Indigenous Women and Professionals’ Proposed Solutions to Prevent Intimate Partner Violence in Tribal Communities.”