THE SCIENTIST
Dr. Pavani Kalluri Ram
Dr. Pavani Kalluri Ram is an Associate Professor of Epidemiology and Environmental Health at the University at Buffalo School of Public Health and Health Professions. She is also the Director of the Office of Global Health Initiatives. Dr. Ram’s areas of expertise includes global health inequities, child survival and mortality, handwashing, diarrheal diseases, acute respiratory infections, infectious disease epidemiology, and public health consequences of natural disasters.Pavani Ram aims to advance public health by improving child survival rates in resource-poor settings. Her current research focuses on evaluating the benefits of low-technology solutions such as handwashing for preventing the leading causes of preventable child mortality, including pneumonia and diarrhea, among vulnerable populations in low- and middle-income countries.
More specifically, Dr. Ram is interested in evaluating the benefits of handwashing for preventing disease among particularly vulnerable populations, such as neonates and new mothers, and understanding how best to promote handwashing behavior in order to achieve healthy handwashing habits that last a lifetime. She is the director of UB’s Community of Excellence in Global Health Equity, which brings together faculty from multiple disciplines to find solutions to promote global health equity.
View Dr. Ram's Research Here!
The Catalyst
Dr. Pavani Kalluri Ram is Dr. Ram always knew that she wanted to work in the global health field. Two moments in her life left a lasting impact on her and guided the trajectory of her career. During her time in medical school in South India, two women spoke to her. The first woman was dying of health issue that had not treatment. The second women was a young lady who carried her unborn child for over 44 weeks and once she got to a health facility she had had a stillbirth and did not even know it. The lack of awareness and need resonated with Dr. Ram. The second experience to leave a lasting effect on Dr. Ram happened during her time with the Global Center for Diseases in 2001 and 2002. She had the opportunity to go to Afghanistan and the level of health inequality she saw there further inspired her to work in the global health field.
Dr. Ram loves the work that she does and having the opportunity to engage with different cultures and travel. Outside of work, she spends her time with her family, playing with her kids, cooking, and exercising.
Current Research
Dr. Ram is leading a team of doctoral students and research assistants in evaluating UNICEF programs that promote hand washing with soap. Her team is working with the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene team at UNICEF headquarters to develop a monitoring and evaluation toolkit for hand washing promotion programs that will be useful for UNICEF programs in more than 100 countries.
During the study, Ram and her team will guide UNICEF teams in evaluating large-scale hand washing promotion programs. The work will fill significant gaps in the understanding of whether or not large-scale hand washing promotion programs succeed in changing the behavior of individuals, and whether this change in behavior is sufficient to improve health in low- and middle-income countries.
In another study, Ram and her team will be evaluating the acceptability and use of waterless hand sanitizer in humanitarian emergency settings. In the early days of a humanitarian emergency or arrival into a refugee settlement, water supplies can be scarce, making handwashing difficult. An option such as alcohol-based sanitizer, which does not require water, could facilitate keeping hands clean and, thus, preventing disease in particularly crowded conditions. This project is funded by CDC.