Katherine Theall, PhD

Senior Director, Violence Prevention Institute

Cecile Usdin Professorship in Women’s Health


School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine
Tidewater Building, 1440 Canal Street, Suite 1500
Headshot of Katherine P. Theall, PhD

Education & Affiliations

  • PhD, Epidemiology, Tulane University
  • Master of Public Health, Epidemiology, Emory University

Biography

Dr. Katherine Theall is the Director of the Mary Amelia Douglas-Whited Community Women’s Health Education Center and a Cecile Usdin Professor. As a social epidemiologist, Dr. Theall's research focuses on policy and community influences on health disparities, with a particular emphasis on neighborhood violence. Her work has linked neighborhood violence to biologic stress in young children and adolescents, drug use in adolescents, sexually transmitted infections, alcohol use in adults and the neighborhood alcohol environment. She is actively involved in interventions and policies aimed at altering environments for better health in vulnerable populations.

Research

Chaparro, M. P., Bilfield, A., & Theall, K. P. (2019). Exposure to Neighborhood Crime Is Associated with Lower Levels of Physical Activity and Higher Obesity Risk among Adolescent Girls, but Not Boys. Childhood Obesity, 15(2), 87-92.

Theall, K. P., Felker-Kantor, E., Wallace, M., Zhang, X., Morrison, C. N., & Wiebe, D. J. (2018). Considering high alcohol and violence neighborhood context using daily diaries and GPS: A pilot study among people living with HIV. Drug and alcohol dependence, 187, 236-241.

Gray, S. A., Jones, C. W., Theall, K. P., Glackin, E., & Drury, S. S. (2017). Thinking across generations: unique contributions of maternal early life and prenatal stress to infant physiology. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 56(11), 922-929.

Interests

Structural Violence, Neighborhood Violence And Disorder, Substance Use, Gender And Racial Equity, Community Violence, Epidemiology