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Alina Schnake-Mahl, ScD, MPH

Alina Schnake-Mahl headshot

Assistant Professor
Health Management and Policy, Urban Health Collaborative
as5494@drexel.edu
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Degrees

ScD, Public Health, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
MPH, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
BA, Health: Science, Society and Policy; and Politics, Brandeis University

Bio

Alina Schnake-Mahl, ScD, MPH, is an Assistant Professor in the Urban Health Collaborative and the Department of Health Management and Policy at Drexel's Dornsife School of Public Health. She is a social epidemiologist and health services researcher, and her primary research interest is in the social and political determinants of health inequities. Her current work aims to identify the compositional and contextual features of places — including neighborhood factors, social policies, and governance structures — that are associated with health disparities. Her policy work focuses on occupational- and housing-related social policies. She uses a combination of descriptive and causal methods to identify and inform policies and interventions that can mitigate health inequity.

Dr. Schnake-Mahl earned a ScD and MPH in social epidemiology from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Before joining the faculty, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Drexel Urban Health Collaborative, and previously worked in applied population health research and evaluation.

Research Interests

  • Infectious Disease
  • Health Disparities
  • Health and Place or Built Environment
  • Urban Health
  • Data Analysis Methods
  • Health Services Research
  • Health Policy

Publications

Select Publications:

Schnake-Mahl A, Diez Roux AV, Bilal U, Schwartz G, Burris S. Rigorous Policy Measurement: causal inference challenges and opportunities for social and legal epidemiology. American Journal of Epidemiology, 2025 Nov 4;194(11):3099-3105. doi: 10.1093/aje/kwae468.

Barsky B, Schnake-Mahl A, Schmidt S, Burris S. Improving the Transparency of Legal Measurement in Health Policy Evaluation: A Guide for Researchers, Reviewers, and Editors. JAMA Health Forum. 2025;6(3):e250067. doi:10.1001/jamahealthforum.2025.0067

Schnake-Mahl A, Bilal U, Diez Roux AV, Holaday L, McCullin E, Siu A, Liu B, Ornstein K. Where you live and where you receive care, variation in COVID-19 in-hospital mortality: A cross-classified multilevel modeling approach. Annals of Epidemiology. 2025 Oct:110:16-22. doi: 10.1016/j.annepidem.2025.07.021. Epub 2025 Jul 22.

Schinasi L, Williams A, Schnake-Mahl A. Mandated rest breaks and warm season occupational injuries and illnesses in Dallas County, TX construction workers: A quasi-experimental, comparative interrupted time series study. 2024, Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 10.1097/JOM.0000000000003144

Schnake-Mahl A, Anfuso G, Goldstein N, Purtle J, Eberth J, Ortigoza A, Bilal U. Measuring Variation in Infant Mortality and Deaths of Despair by U.S. Congressional Districts in Pennsylvania: A Methodological Case Study. 2024, American Journal of Epidemiology. doi: 10.1093/aje/kwae016

Schnake-Mahl A, Jahn J, Purtle J, Bilal U. Considering multiple governance levels in epidemiologic analysis of public policies. Social Science and Medicine, 2022, 2022 Dec:314:115444. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2022.115444. Epub 2022 Oct 14.

Schnake-Mahl A, Pomeranz J, Sun N, Headen I, O’Leary G, Jahn J. Forced Birth and No Time Off Work: Mapping Abortion Access and Paid Family Leave Policies. American Journal of Preventive Medicine. 2023 Oct;65(4):755-759. doi: 10.1016/j.amepre.2023.04.014. Epub 2023 Apr 29.

Schnake-Mahl A, Mullachery P, Kolker J, Skinner A, Raifman J, Diez Roux AV, Bilal U. Higher COVID-19 Vaccination and Narrower Disparities in US cities with Paid Sick Leave Compared to Those Without. Health Affairs, 2022 Nov;41(11):1565–1574. doi: 10.1377/hlthaff.2022.00779

Schnake-Mahl A, O’Leary G, Mullachery P, Kolker J, Diez Roux A, Bilal U. Evaluating indoor dining closures and re-opening on COVID-19 rates in large US cities using a quasi-experimental design. Epidemiology. 2021 (12), doi.org/10.1097/EDE.0000000000001444

Schnake-Mahl A, Sommers B. "Health Care in the Suburbs: A National Analysis of Suburban Poverty and Health Care Access.” Health Affairs. 2017, 36(10):1777-1785. doi:10.1377/hlthaff.2017.0545

View Dr. Schnake-Mahl's full list of publications on Google Scholar