Alessandra N. Bazzano
Associate Professor & Carnegie Corporation of New York Professor of Social Entrepreneurship
Biography
Alessandra Bazzano studies behavior and health, focusing on mother and child health, yoga/mindfulness, and nutrition in low-income populations. Her work emphasizes cultural and social factors that impact health and developmental outcomes. Through a concurrent appointment at the Taylor Center for Social Innovation and Design Thinking, her scholarship explores human-centered design approaches to health research. Dr. Bazzano's expertise, gained through two decades of work in international and domestic public health, includes developing and evaluating complex health interventions, design thinking, applied anthropology, qualitative methods, and formative research. Nutrition is a key part of this work, specifically community-based nutrition programming for women and young children, along with behavioral approaches to improving breastfeeding and infant and young child feeding. Issues related to women's reproductive and sexual health, and access to respectful and high quality care, form another line of inquiry. Dr. Bazzano applies an interdisciplinary lens to health, informed by collaborations across professional boundaries. In the New Orleans area, her current work involves studying the effect of yoga and mindfulness on child health outcomes and understanding experiences of older people with diabetes interacting with health systems in a natural experiment study of non-face-to-face chronic care coordination. In addition, Dr. Bazzano continues to work in Cambodia, Ethiopia, and other international settings on maternal and child health and nutrition interventions, and conducts participatory training with community organizations and future health professionals.
Education
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine
University of California at Santa Barbara
Articles
Race and sex differences in rates of diabetic complications
2019
Studies on racial differences in diabetic complications are very limited. The aim of this study was to investigate the race and sex differences in diabetic complications between African Americans and Whites with type 2 diabetes (T2D) in Louisiana.
Neonatal Sepsis Epidemiology in a Rural Province in Southeastern Cambodia, 2015-2017
2019
Neonatal sepsis is the second most prevalent cause of neonatal deaths in low- and middle-income countries, and many countries lack epidemiologic data on the local causes of neonatal sepsis. During April 2015-November 2016, we prospectively collected 128 blood cultures from neonates admitted with clinical sepsis to the provincial hospital in Takeo, Cambodia, to describe the local epidemiology.
Parent and family perspectives on home-based newborn care practices in lower-income countries: a systematic review of qualitative studies
2019
To understand family and parent perspectives on newborn care provided at home to infants in the first 28 days of life, in order to inform behavioural interventions for improving care in low-income countries, where the majority of newborn deaths occur.
Neonatal deaths in Cambodia: findings from a community-based mortality review
2019
The aim of this study was to describe potential factors contributing to neonatal mortality in Takeo, Cambodia through assessment of verbal autopsies collected following newborn deaths in the community. The mortality review was nested within a trial of a behavioral intervention to improve newborn survival, and was conducted after the close of the trial, within the study setting.
Pregnant Women's Intentions to Deliver at a Health Facility in the Pastoralist Communities of Afar, Ethiopia: An Application of the Health Belief Model
2019
Despite the significant benefits of giving birth at a health facility to improve maternal and child health, the practice remains lower than expected in pastoralist communities of Ethiopia. Understanding the intentions of pregnant women to use health facilities for delivery predicts the adoption of the behavior, yet documented evidence of intention in the context of pastoralist populations remains scarce.
Media Appearances
Yoga In Schools May Help Kids With Anxiety
"The intervention improved psychosocial and emotional quality of life scores for students, as compared to their peers who received standard care," said study author Alessandra Bazzano in a statement. "We also heard from teachers about the benefits of using yoga in the classroom, and they reported using yoga more often each week, and throughout each day in class, following the professional development component of intervention."
Mindfulness for third-graders? Meditation, yoga help kids ward off anxiety and depression
Three years ago, Alessandra Bazzano, a professor at Tulane University’s School of Public Health, led a study at a relatively prosperous public elementary school in New Orleans. Daily yoga and mindfulness classes, she found, improved third graders’ well-being and emotional health. Her team began by testing the kids for anxiety disorders — and found that a whopping 52 percent of them met the criteria. “Even in a school with resources,” she said, “the kids were stressed out.”
