Grantee: Nancy Fleischer, PhD, MPH

Nancy Fleischer, PhD, MPH

Organization:

• University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

Dr. Fleischer's work examines how social and policy environments affect health and health disparities in the United States and around the world. Much of her research focuses on the role of tobacco control policies on health equity, including smoking behaviors, polytobacco use, and downstream health outcomes. More broadly, she is interested in the growing burden of non-communicable diseases globally, and the role tobacco plays in that growth.

In the current project, Dr. Fleischer examines how established and emerging tobacco control policies affect disparities in smoking initiation and cessation, as well as disparities in downstream health outcomes. The goal of the project is to provide policy makers with concrete evidence regarding which tobacco control policies may be most effective in simultaneously reducing both overall smoking as well as long term tobacco-related health disparities. Dr. Fleischer's interest in this field of research stemmed from her dissertation work, in which she observed substantial variability in the patterns of disparities in smoking and other chronic disease risk factors across space and time, implying that these disparities are not immutable. Implementing specific tobacco control policies may be one way to decrease smoking disparities and subsequent health inequities.

---