Alexis Handal
View Alexis Handal's Faculty Profile
Summary
Professor Handal's global work focuses on the impact of large-scale agricultural production on the health of workers and surrounding communities, with a particular focus on female workers, pregnant workers, and their families in Latinx and Indigenous populations in Latin America and the US. Her research approach uses a health equity lens focusing on understanding the interconnection between chemical exposures, and social and work stressors and supports in the context of precarious employment, on worker health and on maternal and child health and development. Her approach, whether through her research or her teaching, weaves social theories into environmental and occupational epidemiology and reproductive epidemiology, which have traditionally been more focused on assessing physical exposures without a consideration of the social, structural, political, and economic contexts. Professor Handal’s expertise is in primary data collection and epidemiologic field methodology in challenging environments, such as rural settings. She appreciates and promotes the use of community-based participatory research (CBPR) and mixed methods approaches in epidemiologic research.
Topics
- capacity building
- community-based participatory research/interventions
- environmental health
- health inequities
- maternal and child health
- occupational health
- reproductive health
- social determinants