Monica Swahn, Associate Professor
E-mail: mswahn@gsu.edu
Office Phone: 404-413-1148
Address:
9th floor Urban Life Building
Research and teaching interests:
Social Epidemiology
Psychiatric and Substance Use Epidemiology
Violence and Injury Epidemiology
Dr. Swahn is an associate professor in the Institute of Public Health and the Partnership for Urban Health Research where she will teach and contribute to new and ongoing research projects.
Prior to joining the Institute, Dr. Swahn worked for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for more than 9 years. Initially, she served as a violence/injury epidemiologist in the Division of Violence Prevention and then as the Deputy Associate Director for Science in the Office on Smoking and Health. In 2006, Dr. Swahn was awarded the prestigious Dixie Snider fellowship in the Office of the Chief Science Officer, CDC. During this fellowship, Dr. Swahn contributed to agency-wide strategic goal and research priority planning and facilitated the preparation and implementation of new research objectives. She also provided assistance and consultations to scientific regulatory services and prepared measures, initiatives, and fiscal year targets for an internal organizational excellence management assessment tool.
While in the Division of Violence Prevention, Dr. Swahn was the principal investigator for the Youth Violence Survey which was administered to over 4,000 high school students and designed to assess the overlap among different forms of violent behaviors. She also served as the scientific officer (consultant) for many CDC funded cooperative agreements and grants including three Academic Centers of Excellence in Youth Violence Prevention, a longitudinal study of detained youth and a longitudinal study of delinquent boys. She has chaired several interdisciplinary workgroups on secondary analyses of large and complex databases and has supervised fellows and EIS officers. Dr. Swahn also provided scientific consultations to state and local health departments, and other agencies on the design, development, and management of surveillance efforts, epidemiologic research projects and prevention programs.
Dr. Swahn received her Ph.D. in Psychiatric Epidemiology from the University of Pittsburgh. Most of her research examines the risk behaviors, mental health factors, social determinants of health, and health disparities among adolescents and young adults in urban settings. Her main research interests pertain to how different forms of violent behaviors are interrelated and how substance use, primarily alcohol, contributes to adverse health outcomes including violent behaviors.
Dr. Swahn's C.V. is available in PDF format.
