Profile

Dr. Theresa L. Osypuk, SD, SM, is a social epidemiologist, and her research examines why place influences health and health disparities, including the roles of racial residential segregation, neighborhood context, and social policies. Her research explores how seemingly “non-health related” social policies (for example, those directly concerned with housing or neighborhoods) may reduce racial/ethnic health disparities. She also researches racial, socioeconomic, and nativity/immigrant disparities in health and mental health, their geographic patterns, and causes.
Dr. Osypuk is currently the principal investigator of two National Institutes of Health grants investigating how housing choice vouchers and neighborhood context influence the mental health of adolescents and their families, in the Moving to Opportunity housing policy experiment. She is also a co-investigator on several NIH grants including a birth cohort to examine racism and pre-term birth among black women, and a cohort study in Bangladesh to understand norms about intimate partner violence and women’s empowerment.
Dr. Osypuk’s research has appeared in leading medical, epidemiology, public health, and urban studies journals. She entered the public health field via communications, by creating national public service campaigns to change attitudes and behavior related to public health and social issues, at The Advertising Council. She received her Master's and Doctoral degrees from the Harvard School of Public Health, and received postdoctoral training in Population Health in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health and Society Scholars fellowship at the University of Michigan. Dr. Osypuk is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health in the Division of Epidemiology & Community Health.