VCU Department of Health Policy

06/10/2026

Huge congratulations to Dr. Shillpa Naavaal on earning her Ph.D. in Health Policy from the VCU School of Public Health. This achievement not only reflects her dedication to improving population health but also highlights the high caliber of scholarship fostered at VCU. We look forward to the continued impact she will make in improving the oral health of populations here and beyond.

06/10/2026

05/21/2026

Health Policy assistant professor Erin Britton, Ph.D., has received a grant from VCU's Wright Center to accelerate medical research by building a synthetic dataset to train researchers in use of the Virginia All-Payer Claims Database without compromising the privacy of real patients. Congratulations, Dr. Britton!

Professors from the schools of Medicine, Public Health and Social Work earn support for disease-agnostic projects that have the potential to be applied across different fields of medicine to help patients. Four interdisciplinary research projects earned a total of $100,000 in translational science g...

05/14/2026

Recent Health Policy graduate Gati Wambura, Ph.D., has been profiled by VCU News as one of the outstanding success stories of the Class of 2026! Gati has worked very hard to accomplish everything she's done as part of our program, and faced adversity and challenges along the way, but she has always risen above it all to remain an outstanding contributor to our program, just as she will now go on to be in the wider world of public health. We couldn't be prouder. Congratulations, Gati!

With her Ph.D. from VCU’s Department of Health Policy, the researcher builds on her Kenyan roots and her experience on other continents.

05/04/2026

Join us in celebrating the hard work our graduating Office Of Medicaid Evaluations team members put in over the past four years of their undergraduate careers!

Although the VCU Office of Medicaid Evaluation was recently launched, its foundation has been years in the making. Well before the office officially opened, extensive background work helped shape our ability to deliver evidence-based analyses of state and federal Medicaid programs. This work would n...

05/01/2026

Congratulations to Health Policy Professor Andrew J. Barnes, Ph.D., for this incredible honor!

Andrew Barnes, Ph.D., professor of health policy, is the inaugural recipient of the VCU ARIA - Excellence in Research for Advancing Societal Well-being.

04/28/2026

Last week, Department of Health Policy Ph.D. candidate Shillpa Naavaal successfully defended her dissertation, which is entitled "Impact of Virginia Medicaid Adult Comprehensive Dental Benefit on Dental Care Utilization and Provider Participation." Congratulations Dr. Naavaal! She will continue her work in her current position as Associate Professor in the VCU School of Dentistry. Congratulations Dr. Naavaal!

04/20/2026

Department of Health Policy Ph.D. candidate Gati Wambura successfully defended her dissertation on Friday, April 17. Her dissertation is entitled "Examining Maternal and Neonatal Health Outcomes Under Health Care Delivery and Payment Reforms: Evidence from Accountable Care Organizations in the United States and Free Maternal Services Policy in Kenya." Congratulations Dr. Wambura!

03/26/2026

Our VCU‑Bolashak scholars met with President Kassym‑Jomart Tokayev and Minister of Higher Education Sayasat Nurbek in Washington, D.C., last November, to discuss the Bolashak program’s progress in the United States. President Tokayev shared his high expectations for the younger generation and emphasized Kazakhstan’s commitment to supporting youth development and self‑realization.

03/11/2026

The latest edition of our Department of Health Policy newsletter is out now! Find out what we're up to by reading the new issue of "DHP In Action": https://conta.cc/3N5qZf6
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