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Ana V. Diez Roux, MD, PhD, MPH

Ana Diez Roux

Distinguished University Professor of Epidemiology
Director of the Drexel Urban Health Collaborative
Dean Emerita Dornsife School of Public Health
Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Urban Health Collaborative
avd37@drexel.edu
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Degrees

MD, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina
PhD, Department of Health Policy and Management, The Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health
MPH, The Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health

Bio

Ana V. Diez Roux, MD, PHD, MPH, is a Distinguished University Professor of Epidemiology and Director of the Drexel Urban Health Collaborative. Dr. Diez Roux was Dean of the Dornsife School of Public Health from 2014-2023.

Originally trained as a pediatrician in her native Buenos Aires, she completed public health training at the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health. Before joining Drexel University, she served on the faculties of Columbia University and the University of Michigan, where she was Chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Director of the Center for Social Epidemiology and Population Health.

Dr. Diez Roux is internationally known for her research on the social determinants of population health and the study of how neighborhoods affect health. Her work on neighborhood health effects has been highly influential in the policy debate on population health and its determinants. Her research areas include social epidemiology and health disparities, environmental health effects, urban health, psychosocial factors, cardiovascular disease epidemiology, social environment-gene interactions, and the use of multilevel methods and complex systems approaches in population health. She has led large NIH and foundation funded research and training programs in the United States and in collaboration with various institutions in Latin America. She was Principal Investigator of the Wellcome Trust funded SALURBAL (Salud Urbana en América Latina) study (2017-2023). She is currently Multiple Principal Investigator for the Wellcome Trust funded SALURBAL Climate Project and PI of the NIH-funded Drexel Center on Climate Change and Urban Health (CCUH). She is also Multiple Principal Investigator of the NIH-funded Drexel FIRST initiative, a program focused on the creation of a culture of inclusive excellence via recruitment and career development support of 12 diverse early stage investigators and a set of strategies in support of institutional transformation at Drexel University.

Dr. Diez Roux has served on numerous editorial boards, review panels and advisory committees including most recently the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) of the Environmental Protection Agency (as Chair), the Board of Scientific Counselors (BSC) of the National Center for Health Statistics, the Committee on Health and Wellbeing in the Changing Urban Environment of the International Council for Science (ISCUS), and CDCs Community Preventive Services Taskforce. She is currently Co-Chair of the Roundtable on Population Health Improvement of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine.

She has received the Wade Hampton Frost Award for her contributions to public health from the American Public Health Association, the Award for Outstanding Contributions to Epidemiology from the American College of Epidemiology, and the Rothman Career Award from the Society for Epidemiologic Research. She is an elected member of the American Epidemiological Society and the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research. She was elected to the National Academy of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences in 2009. Dr. Diez Roux has been an active mentor of doctoral students, postdoctoral fellows and junior faculty from diverse backgrounds.

Research Interests

  • Social determinants of health
  • Neighborhoods and health
  • Race and ethnic health disparities
  • Psychosocial factors and cardiovascular disease
  • Air pollution epidemiology
  • Urban health
  • Multilevel methods
  • Complex systems approaches to population health
  • Health in Latin America
  • Climate change and health

Publications

Select Publications:

Kephart JL, Sánchez BN, Moore J, Schinasi LH, Bakhtsiyarava M, Ju Y, Gouveia N, Caiaffa WT, Dronova I, Arunachalam S, Diez Roux AV, Rodríguez DA. City-level impact of extreme temperatures on mortality in Latin America. Nat Med. 2022;28(8):1700-1705. Jun 27..PMID: 35760859. PMCID: PMC93888372

Uncovering physical activity trade-offs in transportation policy: A spatial agent-based model of Bogotá, Colombia. Stankov I, Meisel JD, Sarmiento OL, Declos-Alio X, Hidalgo D, Guzman LA, Rodriguez DA, Hammond RA, Diez Roux AV. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity Volume 21, Article number: 54 (2024)

Diez Roux AV. Social Epidemiology: Past, Present, and future. Annu Rev Public Health. 2022 Jan 4. PMID: 34982586.

Bilal U, de Castro CP, Alfaro T, Barrientos-Gutierrez T, Barreto ML, Leveau CM, Martinez-Folgar K, Miranda JJ, Montes F, Mullachery P, Pina MF, Rodriguez DA, Dos Santos GF, Andrade RFS, Diez Roux AV. Scaling of mortality in 742 metropolitan areas of the Americas. Sci Adv. 2021 Dec 10;7(50):eabl6325. PMID: 34878846

Quistberg DA, Hessel P, Rodriguez DA, Sarmiento OL, Bilal U, Caiaffa WT, Miranda JJ, de Pina MF, Hernández-Vásquez A, Diez Roux AV. Urban landscape and street-design factors associated with road traffic mortality in Latin America between 2020 and 2016 (SALURBAL): an ecological study. Lancet Planet Health. 2022 Feb;6(2): e122-e131. PMID: 35150622 PMCID: PMC8850369

Schnake-Mahl AS, O'Leary G, Mullachery PH, Vaidya V, Connor G, Rollins H, Kolker J, Diez Roux AV, Bilal U. The impact of keeping indoor dining closed on COVID-19 rates among large US cities: a quasi-experimental design. Epidemiology. 2021 Nov 12. PMID 34799474

Spatial Inequities in COVID-19 Testing, Positivity, Confirmed Cases, and Mortality in 3 U.S. Cities : An Ecological Study. Bilal U, Tabb LP, Barber S, Diez Roux AV. Ann Intern Med. 2021 Jul;174(7):936-944. doi: 10.7326/M20-3936. Epub 2021 Mar 30.

Life expectancy and mortality in 363 cities of Latin America. Bilal U, Hessel P, Perez-Ferrer C, Michael YL, Alfaro T, Tenorio-Mucha J, Friche AAL, Pina MF, Vives A, Quick H, Alazraqui M, Rodriguez DA, Miranda JJ, Diez-Roux AV; SALURBAL group. Nat Med. 2021 Mar;27(3):463-470. doi: 10.1038/s41591-020-01214-4. Epub 2021 Jan 25.

Population Health in the Time of COVID-19: Confirmations and Revelations. Diez Roux AV. Milbank Q. 2020 Sep;98(3):629-640. doi: 10.1111/1468-0009.12474. Epub 2020 Aug 18.

Using community-based system dynamics modeling to understand the complex systems that influence health in cities: The SALURBAL study. Langellier BA, Kuhlberg JA, Ballard EA, Slesinski SC, Stankov I, Gouveia N, Meisel JD, Kroker-Lobos MF, Sarmiento OL, Caiaffa WT, Diez Roux AV; SALURBAL Group. Health Place. 2019 Nov;60:102215. doi: 10.1016/j.healthplace.2019.102215. Epub 2019 Oct 3.

The Unique Space of Epidemiology: Drawing on the Past to Project Into the Future. Diez Roux AV. Am J Epidemiol. 2019 May 1;188(5):886-889. doi: 10.1093/aje/kwz001.

Building a Data Platform for Cross-Country Urban Health Studies: the SALURBAL Study. Quistberg DA, Diez Roux AV, Bilal U, Moore K, Ortigoza A, Rodriguez DA, Sarmiento OL, Frenz P, Friche AA, Caiaffa WT, Vives A, Miranda JJ; SALURBAL Group. J Urban Health. 2019 Apr;96(2):311-337. doi: 10.1007/s11524-018-00326-0.

A Novel International Partnership for Actionable Evidence on Urban Health in Latin America: LAC-Urban Health and SALURBAL. Diez Roux AV, Slesinski SC, Alazraqui M, Caiaffa WT, Frenz P, Jordán Fuchs R, Miranda JJ, Rodriguez DA, Dueñas OLS, Siri J, Vergara AV. Glob Chall. 2018 Jun 19;3(4):1800013. doi: 10.1002/gch2.201800013. eCollection 2019 Apr.

Diez Roux AV. Conceptual approaches to the study of health disparities. Ann Rev Public Health. 2012; 33:41-58. PMID: 22224879. PMCID: PMC3740124.

Diez Roux AV. Complex systems thinking and current impasses in health disparities research. Am J Public Health. 2011. Sep;101(9):1627-1634. PMID: 21778505. PMCID: PMC3154209.

Diez Roux AV, Mair C. Neighborhoods and health. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2010 Feb;1186:125-145. PMID: 20201871. 

Auchincloss AH, Diez Roux AV, Mujahid MS, Shen M, Bertoni AG, Carnethon MR. Neighborhood resources for physical activity and healthy foods and incidence of type 2 diabetes (the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis). Arch Int Med. 2009;12;169 (18)1698-704. PMID: 19822827. PMCID: PMC2800303. 

Auchincloss AH, Diez Roux AV. A new tool for epidemiology? The usefulness of dynamic agent models in understanding place effects on health. Am J Epidemiol, 2008;168(1):1-8.

Diez Roux AV. Multilevel analysis in public health research. Annu Rev Public Health.  2000; 21:171-92. 

Diez Roux AV. Bringing context back into epidemiology: variables and fallacies in multilevel analysis. Am J Pub Health 1998; 88:216-222.

For a complete listing, please visit PubMed.