Mariana Arcaya

Mariana Arcaya, ScD, is an Associate Professor of Urban Planning at Public Health in MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning.  As a social epidemiologist and urban planner, her work explores dynamic relationships between neighborhoods, and health. Mariana conducts scholarly and policy-relevant research in two main areas: 1) bi-directional relationships between place and health, including how health considerations shape socioeconomic outcomes for individuals and communities, and, 2) applied and translational research on the social determinants of health, particularly health risk factors shaped by urban policy and planning decisions.

Mariana's combination of scholarly and practical innovations has attracted the attention of several national organizations, including the American Public Health Associations, which awarded her the Drottman award in 2012 for being the most promising young person (under 30) in the field of public health out of a pool of national candidates. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation also selected her from nearly a thousand nominees as being one of the top 15 young public health leaders (under 40) in the country in 2013.

Prior to joining the MIT faculty, Mariana was as a post-doctoral fellow at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies. She holds a Doctorate of Science from the Harvard School of Public Health, a Master of City Planning from MIT's Department of Urban Studies & Planning, and an undergraduate degree in environmental science and policy from Duke University. Mariana’s professional work experience includes instituting and managing a Public Health Division within Metropolitan Boston’s regional planning agency, as well as designing and overseeing the implementation of healthy urban planning strategies under a federally funded Community Transformation Grant.

Combining sophisticated statistical approaches and study designs for causal inference, expertise on the measurement of place, and theoretical understanding of the importance of contexts for health, Mariana’s work helps informs efforts to intervene on population health challenges, including the reduction of health disparities.

Her scholarly contributions include estimating the effects of neighborhood sprawl on weight gain, identifying proximity to foreclosed homes as a risk factor for higher blood pressure health, and showing effects of job loss on health behaviors, among others. She has also used natural, quasi-, and fully experimental data to establish that poor health may act as a risk factor for subsequence residence in economically deprived neighborhoods. As a quantitative methodologist, Mariana has proposed applied spatial multilevel modeling and geographic classification methodologies that better reflect salient theoretical perspectives on geographic data than do typical modeling approaches used in urban planning and social epidemiology. Finally, Mariana has published policy-relevant Health Impact Assessments and policy recommendations for improving population health and reducing health disparities. She has led externally funded research programs on the application of Health Impact Assessment methodology, and on the health effects of a multi-million dollar private equity fund investing in local transit-oriented development projects intended to improve health.

Mariana’s scholarly work has been cited hundreds of time, and she is routinely invited to speak to academic, non-profit, and public agency audiences about health promotion and health equity. Her work has been covered by major media outlets, including the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, and the Wall Street Journal.