Vandana Tripathi, PhD

Vandana Tripathi, MPH, PhD, is an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health and teaches in the Advanced Online MPH program at the Mailman School. Dr. Tripathi has worked in global public health for over 25 years. Most recently, she served as the Director of the MOMENTUM Safe Surgery in Family Planning and Obstetrics project at EngenderHealth, overseeing this initiative to improve access to, quality of, and use of safe surgical services in maternal health and family planning in 11 countries. Prior to this, she led the Fistula Care Plus project at EngenderHealth, strengthening health system capacity to prevent and treat fistula in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. For both MOMENTUM Safe Surgery and Fistula Care Plus, Dr. Tripathi worked with academic institutions and other research partners around the world to develop and execute a research and learning agenda, resulting in numerous studies to address priority evidence gaps in maternal health and safe surgery. Her primary research interests include the measurement and improvement of health care quality, evaluation of strategies to reduce barriers and strengthen access to health information and services, and assessment of health systems needs and capacity related to safe surgery and maternal morbidity. Among other studies, Dr. Tripathi has developed and empirically validated efficient measures of intrapartum quality of care, evaluated the effectiveness of digital health interventions in fistula screening and referral, and investigated the associations between gender-based violence and fistula. Dr. Tripathi has also served as the head of programs at HealthRight International (formerly Doctors of the World-USA), supervising the development, implementation, and evaluation of health and human rights projects, both globally and in the U.S. Dr. Tripathi has also worked on reproductive health and HIV/AIDS programs at a variety of organizations including Planned Parenthood of New York City and the Ford Foundation.