Research
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I use quantitative methodologies to address issues around health inequity and education. I have worked as the statistician and primary researcher in numerous projects, ranging from physics education to mitigating microaggressions in clinical settings, from public health education to outcomes in HIV care. Please check out some of my favorite work below, with the most up-to-date information provided on Google Scholar and ORCID.
Peer reviewer for: Journal of General Internal Medicine; Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved
Expertise in Quantitative Methods
Generalized Linear Models
Survey design/analysis
Causal Inference
Non-parametric analysis
Medical Education
Assessing for bias in residency applications
Multiple reports have provided guidance about how to re-design residency application processes to mitigate bias and increase diversity of selected residents. However, there is little guidance on how to perform ongoing evaluation of existing application processes. Exploring a sample of over 1,500 applicants over 4 years, we developed a clear methodology for how to assess, and respond to, issues of bias within residency written application, interview, and rank list processes.
Presented at STFM, Salt Lake City, UT, May 2025.
Multiple manuscripts are under preparation for submission.
Medical students' attitudes toward public health
At Columbia's medical school, we implemented a multi-year public health curriculum designed to supplement the traditional system-based preclinical curriculum with the goal of teaching students to think critically about population health problems. We found that attitudes significantly improved toward public health both cross-sectionally (against a control comparison class) and longitudinally (over time within a cohort).
Dunleavy, S … Moise, N. (2024). Implementing public health modules as an approach to improve knowledge and attitudes of medical students: a student-led, multi-year study. Academic Medicine. 99(6), 635-643.
Training medical students to respond to microaggressions
In collaboration with students and faculty at Harvard Medical School, we implemented and assessed the efficacy of microaggressions workshops for pre-clinical medical students. Now one of the most widely cited curricula for anti-racism training in medical schools, we demonstrated its efficacy in both in person and online formats.
Sandoval, R.S., Dunleavy S. (2nd author), … Chatterjee, A. (2021). Equity in Medical Education: Addressing Microaggressions and Discrimination on the Wards. Medical Teacher. 1-8.
Sandoval, R. S., … (4th author) Dunleavy, S., … Chatterjee, A. (2020). Building a toolkit for medical and dental students: Addressing microaggressions and discrimination on the wards. MedEdPortal. 16:10893.
Effect of student-run free clinics on family medicine match rates
Participation in student-run free clinics has long been promoted as an effective strategy for increasing medical student interest in pursuing primary care careers, despite a lack of quality evidence supporting these claims. Borrowing from political science methodologies, I examined the effects of student-run free clinics on family medicine match rates using regression discontinuity analysis; I found that opening a student-run free clinic does not significantly increase the number or rate of students matching into family medicine, suggesting the need for alternative, evidence-based strategies for improving our primary care workforce.
Dunleavy, S. and Paladine, H. (2024). Effect of Student-Run Free Clinics on Family Medicine Match Rates: A Multisite, Regression Discontinuity Study. Family Medicine. 56(7), 422-427.
Health Equity
Race and racism in addiction reseach
In collaboration with addiction faculty at Boston University, I created an algorithm to download and process over 30,000 addiction articles published from 1990 to 2022 with a goal of assessing how our language has shifted around mentioning race and racism. We found that race is mentioned in nearly half of addiction articles published today, while mentions of racism remains far less common. Since the protests against racial injustice and the murder of George Floyd, we also identified an increasing focus on racism, highlighting the importance of social movements on affecting our language and focus in addiction research.
Dunleavy, S … Chatterjee, A. (2024). Racism, not race: quantitative analysis of the use of racism and race in the addiction literature. Social Science & Medicine. 360, 117325.
HIV and connectedness of care
Within the department of sociomedical sciences at Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health, we investigated how connected networks of providers for people living with HIV predicts health outcomes. Using methods borrowed from graph theory, we found that people living with HIV had lower viral loads and were less likely to go to the ED with increasing in-network connections between their care providers, especially when those connections were between housing, primary care, and social work.
Dunleavy, S., Aidala, A. A., & Yomogida, M. (2019). Medical, mental health, and social service linkage predicts better HIV outcomes: a network analytic approach. AIDS Patient Care and STDs. 33(12), 538–548.
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