Vidhya Sasitharan

Profile

I am a PhD student in the Centre for Public Health and Policy supervised by Dr Doreen Montag. My PhD research project and field of interest is exploring the role of social determinants of health in pesticide poisoning among smallholder farming populations and the barriers to adopting agroecological principles. I am also a Planetary Health tutor on the DBL Global and Public Health Masters offered at QMUL. Prior to my PhD, I completed my MPH at Imperial College London, where for my dissertation I worked alongside a London City Council to explore the feasibility of introducing a community health worker project in local wards. Whilst undertaking my BSc in Global Health at Queen Mary, I also interned at several national and international institutions and NGOs working on the following topics: addressing dietary NCD risk factors, identifying barriers to healthcare access in LMICs in addition to creating research tools to improve environmental and human health.

Research

Research Interests:

My research interests include health policy and governance, planetary health and the interplay between environmental and human health, social determinants and their intersectionality and the health of marginalised populations.

I am also interested in using mixed methods and interdisciplinary and intersectoral approaches to research.