Fostering person- and data-driven evidence to counteract maternal health disparities surrounding substance use during pregnancy, particularly among BIPOC people who are pregnant
Principal Investigator
Rachel Ceasar, PhD
Assistant Professor of Clinical Population and Public Health Sciences
rceasar@usc.edu
http://linkedin.com/in/rachelceasar/
Rachel Carmen Ceasar, PhD, is a medical anthropologist and also the qualitative research consultant for the Southern California Clinical and Translational Science Institute’s Biostatistics Epidemiology and Research Design. Rachel leads the USC Maternal Cannabis Lab, where qualitative and quantitative research is conducted to document the historic and systematic inequities people face when they use cannabis during pregnancy. Their goal in this work is to partner with maternal health providers, patients, and cannabis dispensaries to develop person-centered and harm reduction-based curriculum and education that supports–rather than criminalizes—parents.
Lab Staff
Erin Gould
Research Coordinator
Erin joined the Maternal Cannabis lab team in 2022. She graduated from the University of Southern California with a B.S. in Health Promotion and Disease Prevention and a Master of Public Health in Community Health Promotion. Prior to joining the lab, she worked in research and community health settings focused on LGBTQ+ health, adolescent mental well-being, and family health education. Erin’s research interests include women’s health, healthy aging and development across the lifespan, healthcare inequities, and mental health. In her role today, she oversees several qualitative and mixed-methods studies within the lab exploring the perspectives and experiences of pregnant and postpartum individuals, clinicians, and leaders within the cannabis industry as they relate to cannabis and other substance use.
Research Assistants
Sid Ganesh
Sid Ganesh is a 4th year doctoral student in Health Behavior Research at Keck Medicine of USC. She earned an AB in Psychology and a BS in Neurobiology, Physiology, and Behavior at UC Davis where she worked on clinical research in the adult and pediatric emergency departments and on qualitative projects studying safety-net clinics and patterns of substance use. Sid’s research interests are focused on how structural vulnerabilities and health system inequities intersect to impact individual and population health outcomes. Her current areas of research include ontological security and interpersonal relationships, opioid overdose prevention, and moral injury and burnout among physicians. At the Maternal Cannabis Lab, she is assisting with coding, analysis, and manuscript writing on our active projects.
Jen Laughter
Jen Laughter has been with the Maternal Cannabis Lab since 2022. She is a 2023 graduate of California State University, Fullerton, and plans to pursue a doctoral degree. She is interested in how social factors impact health outcomes.
Shreya Tamatam
Shreya Tamatam is current medical student and Master’s in Public Health candidate from Sacramento, CA. She is interested in maternal-fetal medicine and hopes to work as an OB/GYN in underserved areas in Los Angeles. She is also interested in health policy and studying global health disparities, especially as they relate to substance use and fetal development.
Amal Roble
Amal Roble is a sophomore at the University of Southern California majoring in Health Promotion and Disease Prevention. She is interested in the intersection between social justice and medicine, as well as health literacy and healthcare equity.
Sofia Ufret-Rivera
Sofia Ufret-Rivera is a junior at USC studying Global Health. She is interested in community-based work and the intersection of policy, culture, and environment as it pertains to health. As a research assistant for the Maternal Cannabis Lab, she hopes to explore how stigma influences healthcare outcomes and gain helpful skills to inform her approaches in the future.
Becky Smeltzer
Becky Smeltzer is a current PhD student in Health Behavior Research at USC’s Keck School of Medicine Department of Population and Public Health Sciences. She received her Bachelor of Science in Nutrition and Dietetics from the University of New Hampshire in 2016 and earned her Master of Public Health in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from Boston University School of Public Health in 2019. She served as a Community Data Manager for over three years on the Massachusetts HEALing Communities Study, a community-engaged research study aimed at reducing overdose deaths. Becky’s research interests include substance use and overdose epidemiology, community and neighborhood contexts on health outcomes, impacts of structural racism on health outcomes, and community-based participatory research methods. At the Maternal Cannabis Lab, she is assisting with interviewing, coding, analysis, and manuscript writing on our active projects.
Reagan Sutton
Reagan Sutton is a junior at the University of Southern California studying Global Health with a minor in Management Consulting. She is interested in the intersection of policy and healthcare, whole person care, and community-centered healthcare.