“My personal motivation towards this arena has been the prevalence of inequity in terms with basic health services. So, it is essential to dig deeper to reveal all the tiny determinants in the society which can help improve the community as a whole.”

Gargi Deshpande
Clinical Research Associate

Meet Gargi Deshpande, our Public Health Insight Community Star! Gargi currently works as a Clinical Research Associate in India/United States to help implement novel Breast Cancer screening solutions through Machine Intelligence.

In this post, Gargi shares her passion for public health by providing responses to the following questions:

What does public health mean to you?

I am always amazed at the expanse of public health. Something as simple as a mosquito bite to something as catastrophic as climate change can be determinants of the health of the population. My personal motivation towards this arena has been the prevalence of inequity in terms of basic health services. So, it is essential to dig deeper to reveal all the tiny determinants in the society which can help improve the community as a whole. After all, it takes a huge amount of work to create a tiny difference in public health!

What work do you do in public health?

I have recently started working as a Clinical Research Associate with Niramai Health Analytix. My work essentially revolves around Clinical studies conducted to help implement novel Breast Cancer screening solutions through Machine Intelligence. Simultaneously I am working part-time as an Adjunct Faculty for Epidemiology at James Lind Institute. Previously, I worked as a Research Assistant looking at the Spatiotemporal trends of Vector-borne diseases with the changing climate of Texas. I was also fortunate to work as a Contact tracer at the Covid Investigations and Operations Center with the Brazos County Health Department (Texas) during the pandemic.

What is your public health message?

There can’t be enough emphasis put on the sustainability of any public health action. We have witnessed the collapse of health systems in various countries during the pandemic. It has just brought about the importance of the preparedness phase in terms of Emergency Management. Learning from each health event, public professionals can devise models to strengthen and prepare the health systems to combat the next possible health event.