Health Disparities

Dr. Naomi Zewde is a scholar of public policy. She studies how public institutions can deliver health, medical care, and economic security across the economic distribution, and how we can directly compress the distribution.

Srikanth Kadiyala conducts research on modelling the effects of the Affordable Care Act on health insurance choice, health insurance effects on healthcare and health, the uninsured, racial disparities, and topics related to cancer screening and cancer detection.

Dr. Dana Rose Garfin, PhD is an Assistant Professor-in-Residence in the Department of Community Health Sciences at the Fielding School of Public Health at UCLA.

Marissa Seamans, PhD, MSPH, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology. Dr. Seamans’ research focuses on the intersection of social epidemiology and pharmacoepidemiology to address substance use and mental health. Her work explores the use of large healthcare databases to examine prescription drug use in families and the effectiveness of treatments for mental health and substance use disorders. Methodologically, Dr.

Dr. Joseph Davey's research focuses on how best to prevent and treat HIV and other sexually transmitted infections in peri-conception, pregnant women and couples, as well as other vulnerable populations. She has expertise in study design and use of epidemiological methods to inform interventions aimed at reducing the burden of HIV and related diseases on women, children, and families.

Dr. Liwei Chen is an Associate Professor (tenured) in the Department of Epidemiology at UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.  Dr. Chen’s research mainly focusses on identifying effective lifestyle approaches to prevent/management obesity, diabetes, hypertension and other cardiometabolic diseases.  She is also interested in maternal and child health and the life-course approach of chronic disease epidemiology.  Dr.

Roch Nianogo is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. He is a physician and scientist of preventive medicine and epidemiologist. Dr. Nianogo’s research strives to help reduce the burden of preventable chronic diseases, promote the health and wellbeing of patients and populations, especially those most vulnerable, and assist clinical, public health and policy decision-making. To this end, Dr. Nianogo has developed research interests that are both methodological and substantive in nature.

Ilan H. Meyer, Ph.D. is Distinguished Senior Scholar for Public Policy at the Williams Institute for Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy at UCLA’s School of Law, Adjunct Professor in Community Health Sciences at UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, and Professor Emeritus of Sociomedical Sciences, Columbia University. Dr. Meyer studies public health issues related to minority health.

Elizabeth Rose Mayeda (she/her) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. Dr. Mayeda's research focuses on identifying modifiable determinants of cognitive decline, dementia, and stroke in late life. Her research program has both applied and methodological themes. She focuses on describing and identifying mechanisms contributing to disparities in late-life cognitive and brain health and also leads work addressing methodological challenges in longitudinal studies of stroke, cognitive aging, and dementia risk.