Public Health Research at Drexel Dornsife: Urban Health, Global Impact
Social inequalities in health remain a major challenge for societies around the globe. Drexel University's Dornsife School of Public Health is committed to understanding the drivers of health disparities, investigating the possible interventions to reduce those disparities, and working with partners to eliminate them. Our school views social justice as critical to population health.
All of Dornsife's public health research has a community component to it. Co-created research projects result in co-created solutions to public health problems that are ultimately more sustainable and have more community investment.
The growth of research at Drexel Dornsife is one of the School’s defining features, having more than quintupled since 2014.
Public Health Research Resources
Dornsife has a diverse research portfolio in areas of population health including urban health, health disparities, translation of evidence into practice and policy, and health and human rights. Learn more about our research centers, interests and activities.
Centers and Programs
Faculty Research Interests
Faculty Grants and Announcements
Dornsife Research Expertise
Learn more about how Dornsife, both locally and globally, is building partnerships and focusing on health in cities.
Research Partnerships
Dornsife research is elevated by our partnerships with other exceptional local and international organizations. Learn more about our alliances.
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Urban Health
By 2050, cities will be home to two-thirds of the world’s population. Learn about the work of Dornsife's Urban Health Collaborative.
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Featured Public Health Research Topics
Below are two featured areas of research that reinforce Dornsife's commitment to the three goals of generating the best scientific evidence, putting it into practice, and promoting equity and social justice.
Maternal & Child Health
Our Maternal and Child Health Program strives to improve the health of families through education and research.
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Climate Change
The Drexel Urban Health Collaborative was awarded three grants that affirm the center's role as a major urban health and climate change research hub.
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Faculty Research Highlight
Dornsife is fortunate to have among our faculty many experienced public health practitioners, and many researchers focused on generating policy relevant evidence. Evidence and action are two sides of the same coin, reinforcing and informing each other continuously to improve population health and eliminate health disparities.
Dornsife received a $20 million award through the NIH's Community Partnerships to Advance Science for Society (ComPASS) program to study health equity solutions nationwide. The ComPASS Coordinating Center at Drexel will be led by Amy Carroll-Scott, PhD, associate professor and chair of Community Health and Prevention, and Jan M. Eberth, PhD, professor and chair of Health Management and Policy.
Latest Public Health Research News
Dornsife researchers show the value of public health by addressing current and emerging issues facing the world today. Read about our research and activities making news locally, nationally and globally.
Findings from an interdisciplinary team of Drexel researchers suggest that school modernization has a significant positive impact on key educational indicators, including test scores, graduation rates and enrollment over time.
A newly published study from the SALURBAL group finds that increases in fine particulate air pollution were associated with increases in death from cardiovascular and respiratory diseases in adults in 337 cities across nine countries in Latin America.
A recent SALURBAL study published in Applied Geography sheds light on the relationship between neighborhood greenness and mental health and depression in cities across Mexico.
A team of researchers from seven universities, including Drexel University, conducted a nationwide survey to measure whether the COVID-19 pandemic had such an effect on views about Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination.
New RWJF grant awarded to the Ubuntu Center puts the needs, ideas, and voices of the community at the forefront to address deep-rooted structural racism within the healthcare industry and advance equity and justice in healthcare systems.
A newly published paper by faculty and students at the Dornsife School of Public Health, and Urban Health Collaborative found that climate-related disasters were associated with mental distress among adolescents living in urban school districts across the U.S.
Growing attention to the high prevalence and inequitable distribution of eviction has led to a rapid proliferation of studies on eviction and health. To gain a more comprehensive understanding of these studies' methods and findings, researchers at Dornsife conducted a scoping review.
Rates of people experiencing homelessness plummeted in big U.S. cities when pandemic-era housing safety net programs and policies were in effect. Now that these programs have ended, rates of people experiencing homelessness have risen to record levels.
As Congress approaches yet another deadline to fund the government and its programs, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)—a program that provides healthy foods and other services to pregnant and postpartum women along with infants and young children—is seeing a potentially devastating funding shortfall and cuts.
In a new Policy Core blog series, we’ll highlight important topics in urban policy with implications for health and health equity. We hope the series will help our collaborators learn about various policy areas and potentially spark interest in future research and practice experience on these policies. This month we start with a (literal) hot topic in health policy: extreme heat and worker protections.
Over 200 million people in Latin American cities are exposed to nitrogen dioxide (NO2) pollution at levels that exceed WHO guidelines, according to Drexel University researchers in a new Lancet Planetary Health publication.
A new qualitative study sheds light on barriers and facilitators to HIV prevention and care for Venezuelan migrant/refugee women and girls in Colombia and offers possible interventions.
As seasonal flu rates rise, it is essential that flu prevention efforts reach people who are at the highest risk: young children and older adults aged 60+. Using data from the Big Cities Health Inventory, an open-source platform providing health metrics for the 35 large U.S. cities that comprise the Big Cities Health Coalition (BCHC), we found stark racial disparities in flu vaccine uptake among urban residents.
A multi-million dollar grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences will be used to establish the Drexel Climate Change and Urban Health Research Center (CCUH), which will support research to help protect the growing urban populations of the world from the adverse health and equity effects of climate change.