VCU Department of Health Policy

08/26/2026

Last week, Department of Health Policy MD/Ph.D. candidate Sarah Marks successfully defended her dissertation, which is entitled "Road to Recovery: Medicaid, Social Drivers, and Substance Use after Critical Illness." Dr. Marks will now return to medical school to finish the clinical portion of her MD/PhD training here at VCU. Congratulations Dr. Marks!

08/24/2026

The National Institute on Drug Abuse-funded MODRN EQUIP initiative, a partnership co-lead by the VCU Office of Medicaid Evaluation, published a commentary co-authored by individuals with lived opioid use disorder experience. The commentary discusses how this multistate research collaborative is collecting patient experiences with opioid use disorder treatment to guide a new generation of claims-based substance use treatment quality measurement that incorporates patient voices. Learn more here:

08/17/2026

Two scholars who traveled to VCU from the Central Asian country of Kazakhstan to study medicine and public health completed VCU-Bolashak International Scholarship Program this summer. Directed by Health Policy Associate Professor Askar Chukmaitov, Ph.D., the program has hosted 21 Kazakh scholars since it began in 2012, and expects four more to arrive at VCU this fall.

Two scholars who traveled to study at VCU from the far-off Central Asian country of Kazakhstan completed the VCU-Bolashak International Scholarship Program this summer. Dr. Ainash Khissamitova worked with the VCU Department of Otolaryngology, receiving mentorship from Dr. Rajanya S. Petersson, M.D.,...

08/10/2026

Congratulations to Health Policy Assistant Professor Erin Britton, Ph.D., who received an award from the VCU Quest Fund for her project, “Eliciting Patient Preferences for Artificial Intelligence in Primary Care.” Way to go, Dr. Britton!

These competitive internal grants empower faculty to launch pilot studies, restart research programs and drive transdisciplinary discoveries.

08/03/2026

07/15/2026

A delegation including Health Policy Associate Professor Askar Chukmaitov and School of Public Health Dean Monica Swahn journeyed to Kazakhstan in May to expand opportunities for scholarly collaborations and learning exchanges. The visit proved very fruitful and energizing for all involved.

In May, Monica Swahn, Ph.D., M.P.h., dean of the VCU School of Public Health; Askar Chukmaitov, Ph.D., associate professor of Health Policy and director of the VCU Bolashak International Scholarship Program; and Jose G. Trevino, M.D., FACS, professor of Surgical Oncology led a delegation from VCU to...

06/10/2026

Huge congratulations to Dr. Shillpa Naavaal on earning her Ph.D. in Health Policy from the VCU School of Public Health. This achievement not only reflects her dedication to improving population health but also highlights the high caliber of scholarship fostered at VCU. We look forward to the continued impact she will make in improving the oral health of populations here and beyond.

05/21/2026

Health Policy assistant professor Erin Britton, Ph.D., has received a grant from VCU's Wright Center to accelerate medical research by building a synthetic dataset to train researchers in use of the Virginia All-Payer Claims Database without compromising the privacy of real patients. Congratulations, Dr. Britton!

Professors from the schools of Medicine, Public Health and Social Work earn support for disease-agnostic projects that have the potential to be applied across different fields of medicine to help patients. Four interdisciplinary research projects earned a total of $100,000 in translational science g...