Rhea Pillai, MPH

Rhea Pillai is a Project Coordinator for the “Harmonizing Hospital-Based Violence Intervention Programs with a Novel Medical-Legal Partnership for Equity in the Social and Structural Determinants of Health” project at the University of Chicago and is a member of the Data & Methods and the Policy, Implementation & Economics Workgroups for the Community Firearm Violence Prevention Network.

As an emerging public health professional, Rhea has an interest in the intersection of policy and health outcomes, leading to her focus on one of the biggest issues facing young adults today: firearm violence. While she was receiving my MPH degree at the University of Chicago, Rhea learned about their new HVIP-MLP program, designed to address the social and economic inequities of trauma patients. Rhea took on the role as coordinator and researcher to apply the theoretical skills she learned related to community engagement, data analysis, and policy development to understand the ways violence prevention can be improved. By understanding and working with affected individuals, Rhea is able to see what we as a community need to address in our current healthcare system. She is looking forward to further working on this initiative to create changes at all levels regarding firearm violence.