Spotlight: Nancy Fleischer
Dr. Nancy Fleischer is a social epidemiologist and faculty member at the University
of Michigan’s School of Public Health’s Center for Social Epidemiology and Population
Health and the University of Michigan’s newly-funded Center for the Assessment of
the Public Health Impact of Tobacco Regulations. Dr. Fleischer received her Ph.D.
in Epidemiologic Science from the University of Michigan in 2010.
Dr. Fleischer is interested in health disparities in tobacco use, and the extent to which tobacco control policies and other policies can affect tobacco-related health disparities. Dr. Fleischer’s work examines the role of changing tobacco control policies over time and how these policy changes affect disparities, sometimes in unpredictable ways. Dr. Fleischer plans to continue to investigate the health disparities in tobacco use so that policymakers can make informed policy decisions with regard to health equity.
Dr. Fleischer has been awarded several grants for her research efforts regarding tobacco control policy and its effects on health equity. One grant, which is funded by the NIH, will investigate how established and emerging policies affect disparities by socioeconomic status and race/ethnicity in smoking initiation and cessation. Dr. Fleischer’s team will accomplish this through investigating current tobacco control policies’ influence on disparities in smoking initiation among youth, determining how these same policies influence disparities in smoking cessation among adults, and finally synthesizing those findings to predict which combination of policies may be most effective in reducing health disparities in tobacco-attributable mortality over time using a tobacco policy simulation model. This project will provide evidence that will inform future tobacco control policy choices of policymakers and public health professionals at the local, state, and national levels.
Another grant, which is funded through the Center for the Assessment of the Public Health Impact of Tobacco Regulations at the University of Michigan, will model the impact of tobacco control policies on polytobacco use, use of two or more tobacco products such as cigarettes, electronic cigarettes, cigars, and chewing tobacco, and associated health disparities by socioeconomic status and race/ethnicity. Simulation modeling will be used to estimate current disparities in single- and multi-product tobacco use and changes in these consumption patterns over time; the impact of past tobacco control policies on current patterns of tobacco and nicotine product use; tobacco-related health disparities in all-cause mortality, cardiovascular mortality, and other health outcomes associated with single- and multi-product tobacco use and the effect of past policies on these outcomes; and the impact of potential new policies on tobacco use and on tobacco-related health disparities associated with single- and multi-product tobacco use.
For questions about her courses or research, contact Dr. Fleischer at nancyfl@umich.edu.