Adjunct Faculty

Cassandra Adiba Okechukwu

Adjunct Associate Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences

Social and Behavioral Sciences

cokechuk@hsph.harvard.edu


Overview

Dr. Okechukwu investigates how work environments influence the health and cancer prevention behaviors of vulnerable populations. She focuses on the working class, immigrant communities, and women who earn low wages. She also has an interest in global tobacco control, especially as it relates to tobacco industry practices in African countries.

CURRENT RESEARCH

Observational studies: Using social epidemiologic lens, Dr. Okechukwu is using the Tobacco Use Supplement to the Current Population Survey to investigate the contribution of macroeconomic trends, tobacco control policies, work organization and household factors to smoking among the working class.

Intervention studies: Dr. Okechukwu is a member of the multidisciplinary Work, Family and Health Network. She is evaluating the impact of a randomized controlled work-family intervention, which focuses on direct care employees in 30 nursing homes, on the health of nursing home residents. The team is based at eight different institutions and is sponsored by multiple institutes at the NIH.

Dr. Okechukwu is also heading a NIOSH Workplace Injustice white paper team. They will present their findings at the First National Conference on Eliminating Health and Safety Disparities at Work, which is sponsored by the National Institute For Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).


Bibliography


News

Okechukwu honored for work-family research

Cassandra Okechukwu, ScD ’08, assistant professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, has received several awards for her research on work-family issues. The American Public Health Association’s Aging…

Working long hours linked to heavier drinking

Working long hours appears to drive people to drink more alcohol, according to an international study published January 13, 2015 in the journal BMJ (British Medical Journal). Scientists studied data on more than 430,000 people in 14 countries.…

HSPH welcomes health care journalists to Boston

March 22, 2013 — Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) helped welcome more than 750 reporters, editors, and news producers to Boston for the Association of Health Care Journalists’ annual conference, held March 14-17, 2013. HSPH co-sponsored the…