On Monday, June 11, 2018 the Departments of Family Medicine, Preventive Medicine and Community Health and the Institute for the Medical Humanities hosted two panel discussions on gun violence and gun policy. We would like to thank the featured panelists, Rajeev Ramchand, PhD and Catherine Troisi, PhD. for their wealth of knowledge and passion on our country’s ever increasing public health crisis.
Rajeev Ramchand, PhD, a Senior Behavioral Scientist with RAND Corporation in Washington, DC. He studies the prevalence, prevention, and treatment of mental health and substance use disorders in adolescents, service members and veterans, and minority populations. He has conducted many studies on suicide and suicide prevention including environmental scans of suicide prevention programs, epidemiologic studies on risk factors for suicide, evaluations of suicide prevention programs, and has developed tools to help organizations to evaluate their own programs. He has testified on suicide prevention before the United States Senate and California State Senate. Other current areas of research include military and veteran caregivers (he has testified before the U.S. House of Representatives on military caregivers), the role of firearm availability, storage, and policies on suicide, the impact of disasters on community health, and violent extremism. He received his B.A. in economics from the University of Chicago and his Ph.D. in psychiatric epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Also on the panel was Catherine Troisi, PhD, Associate Professor of UT Health School of Public Health in Houston with a focus in Epidemiology. Dr. Troisi is currently Associate Professor (tenured) in the Divisions of Management, Policy, and Community Health and Epidemiology and coordinator for the Leadership Studies Concentration at University of Texas School of Public Health where she teaches courses in public health and leadership. Her expertise is in infectious disease epidemiology and she has research grants in the areas of HIV and hepatitis. She also collaborates with the Houston/Harris County Coalition for the Homeless. Cathy holds a BA in Chemistry from the University of Rochester, an MS in Biochemistry from Michigan State University, and a PhD in Epidemiologic Sciences from the University of Michigan. She completed the National Public Health Leadership Training in 2011.
Cathy is a Fellow of the Texas Public Health Association (TPHA), where she served on the Governing Council and strategic planning committees and assisted in planning the 2011 Annual Conference. She received the 2010 TPHA Outstanding Service Award. Dr. Troisi has extensive experience in both scientific research, starting her academic career in the laboratory, and then moving to community work and public health practice. This gives her a broad view of public health and allows her to "bridge the gap" between academia and practice while appreciating the contribution that both make to improving community health.