Vaishali Deo

Research Associate
Begun Center for Violence Prevention Research and Education
Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences

Additional Information

Vaishali is a physician by training. She was a practicing pathologist in India for many years. She completed her Master’s in Public health, majoring in Population Health Research, from Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) in 2019.

During her MPH Capstone project, at the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner’s Office, she focused her research on abstracting and analyzing overdose mortality data and prescription data of opioid overdose decedents. She presented her research at the Annual Conferences of American Academy of Forensic Sciences and Association of Prevention Teaching and Research in 2019. She also received an award of ‘Excellence in Public Health’ on completing her MPH degree at Case. Since then, she continued to work on this subject, presented her work at various national and local meetings, and published her work in the Journal of Forensic Sciences and Journal of American College of Cardiology.

Q: Why is your work at the Begun Center important to you, to our community, and to the world? I am excited about working here because I feel that tackling the drug overdose requires a multi-pronged approach. Social inequalities are, both, an important cause and effect of this issue. Thus, research in attempting to understand this problem from multiple perspectives is an important step towards reaching a solution. I am delighted and fortunate to be able to work in this exceptional place. I hope to be able to provide a meaningful contribution to this very diverse team. 

Q: What is a cause about which you are particularly passionate? I am particularly interested in research on the opioid pandemic and providing evidence to promote meaningful change.