Fielding School professor named to leadership team at the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research

Dr. Corrina Moucheraud, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health professor of health policy and management, has been named an associate director of the Fielding School of Public Health's UCLA Center for Health Policy Research.

Moucheraud brings more than 15 years of experience in global public health research — focusing on areas including HIV/AIDS, women’s health, malaria, and non-communicable diseases such as hypertension — with projects in many lower-resource countries in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia. She has been a UCLA CHPR faculty associate since April 2016, and will share expertise on how global health policies can be used to inform U.S. health policies.

“I am thrilled to welcome Dr. Corrina Moucheraud to the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research leadership team,” said Dr. Ninez Ponce, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health professor of health policy and management and director of the center. "We are at a critical point in time for global health. And today’s global health challenges require commitment and collaboration. Dr. Moucheraud’s vast experience in global health research, coupled with her passion for health equity and deep knowledge of global health policy and health systems, make her the right person to help us enhance the center’s impact globally.”

Moucheraud joins Dr. Nadereh Pourat, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health professor of health policy and management, as one of the center's two associate directors.

“I am honored to join the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research in this role, and to have the opportunity to engage more deeply with the Center’s work on health equity, data democratization, and evidence-based policymaking,” Moucheraud said. “In our interconnected global community, there are endless opportunities for bidirectional learning and insights, and I am excited to engage in UCLA CHPR’s ongoing work as well as develop new projects together. The Center’s vision and values align with my own in really inspiring ways, and I am thrilled to be taking on this new role.”

Moucheraud was recently named director of PhD and MS programs with the Fielding School's Department of Health Policy and Management, where she will work with and help develop the next generation of leaders in public health and health care.

“Working with students is one of the most rewarding parts of my job. I mentor a diversity of students, from undergraduates to medical students to master's and doctoral students at FSPH,” Moucheraud said. “I enjoy developing multi-year relationships with mentees, as this allows me to adjust roles, skills-building, and responsibilities as students' own interests evolve. I’ve also worked with various students on many of my research projects — both here in Los Angeles and around the world.”

Conducting both quantitative and qualitative research, Moucheraud focuses on the issue areas concerning the delivery of high-quality, equitable, and sustainable care in under-resourced settings.

Her research spans across the world — from using equity-based approaches to decreasing the incidence of HIV/AIDS in Los Angeles County and throughout California; to addressing the significant cervical cancer burden in Malawi, Africa; to evaluating health systems to improve hypertension outcomes among adults in Thailand; to reducing provider bias towards adolescents seeking family planning services in Tanzania, Burkina Faso, and Pakistan. Her work has been supported through more than a dozen grants from organizations that include the  Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, National Cancer Institute, and the California HIV/AIDS Research Program.

Over the last 10 years, Moucheraud has authored or co-authored more than 40 peer-reviewed articles, which have appeared in journals that include Health Affairs, JAMA Cardiology, BMC Public Health, and AIDS and Behavior, among others. She also serves as the chair of the AcademyHealth Global Health and Health Care Interest Group Advisory Committee, a network of researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and trainees committed to fostering the global development, dissemination, and use of health services research to improve the quality, efficiency, effectiveness, and outcomes of care and the health status and quality of life globally.

In a recent Ask the Expert Q&A with UCLA CHPR, Moucheraud sheds light on the deeper implications underscoring the intersection of global and U.S. health policies, noting that a lot can be learned from global health researchers about culturally-competent data measurement for diverse populations.

Moucheraud earned her MPH at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her ScD in Global Health and Population from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. In 2021, she was named a visiting scholar by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) branch of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical and Translational Science Awards Program.

UCLA CHPR has also appointed two esteemed researchers to leadership positions:

Dr. Ying-Ying Meng, has been named director of research at UCLA CHPR. Meng previously served as a senior research scientist and co-director of the Chronic Disease Program at the Center for more than 20 years. She has worked to establish UCLA CHPR as a recognized source of important analyses of population-based data for understanding the relationship between physical and social environments and chronic disease morbidities. Meng has served as principal investigator/project director for numerous groundbreaking studies to examine the complex relationships between health and social position (e.g., poverty level, race/ethnicity), environmental context (e.g., policy, traffic/air pollution, access to care), and behavior (e.g., smoking); as well as heterogeneities in their relationships. She has advanced expertise in linking and analyzing health and environmental data to research the causes of and solutions to inequities in health and health care delivery from a holistic perspective.

Meng currently leads a statewide evaluation of the collective impact of the California Department of Public Health California Tobacco Control Program’s Priority Populations Initiative. She is also a principal investigator for various grants, including a high-impact research project studying state and local policies on smoking behaviors and disparities, and a study that evaluates the impacts from short-term particulate matter exposures on work loss days in normal times or during and after wildfires.

In her new role, Meng will facilitate and guide UCLA CHPR’s research endeavors, support research staff, and build on UCLA CHPR’s nearly 30-year history of innovative research through promoting research partnerships.

Dr. Kathryn G. Kietzman, has been named director of UCLA CHPR’s Health Disparities Program. A senior research scientist at UCLA CHPR and an associate researcher in the Department of Community Health Sciences at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, Kietzman’s research focuses primarily on the long-term health and social care needs of physically, socially, and financially vulnerable populations, including older adults and people with disabilities.

Kietzman currently leads the California Health Interview Survey Long Term Services and Support study aimed at understanding the needs of Californians who experience difficulties with certain activities of daily life, such as dressing, bathing, walking, or doing errands. These data have helped inform Gov. Gavin Newsom's Master Plan for Aging Research Subcommittee, which Kietzman was tapped to serve on in 2020. The group has worked to identify data sources and needs, recommended measures to include in a data dashboard, and developed a proposal for a research agenda — all designed to support and measure progress as the state implements its master plan.

Other recent studies include an evaluation of how older adults with serious mental illness are served through California’s public mental health delivery system, and an investigation of how dual eligible health care consumers (i.e., those insured by both Medicare and Medi-Cal) access and use information to make decisions about their health care options.

In her new role, Kietzman will oversee some of UCLA CHPR’s key initiatives, including older adult health and immigrant health, including the Research on ImmiGrant HealTh and State policy (RIGHTS) study, designed to understand the experiences that Latino and Asian immigrants who live in California have encountered in health care and other socioeconomic factors that may impact their health status and outcomes.

by Tiffany Lopes

The UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, founded in 1961, is dedicated to enhancing the public's health by conducting innovative research, training future leaders and health professionals from diverse backgrounds, translating research into policy and practice, and serving our local communities and the communities of the nation and the world. The school has 631 students from 26 nations engaged in carrying out the vision of building healthy futures in greater Los Angeles, California, the nation and the world.