Riley Eli Santiago

R. Eli Santiago is pursuing a PhD in Health Policy and Management at Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine concurrent with an MD at Tulane School of Medicine. Their goal in pursuing a joint degree is to advance into a clinical-management position post-residency/fellowship and to expand healthcare services in medically underserved areas. 

Current projects include:

• Qualitative research in Medicaid substance use disorder (SUD) care coordination in Louisiana under Dr. Janna Wisniewski with the Louisiana Medicaid SUD 1115 Waiver Evaluation Group.
• International, multi-institutional research with the Center for Applied Malaria Research and Evaluation on malaria net use in Mali, Nigeria, Rwanda, and Burkina Faso under the direction of Dr. Joshua Yukich. Research includes a cost-benefit analysis for two types of insecticide-treated nets in 2019-2020 and a meta-analysis.
• National study estimating the economic burden of health disparities by modeling the estimates for excess premature death by race and socioeconomic status for 2017-2018 using vital statistics data. Working under Dr. Andrew Anderson and Dr. Thomas LaVeist.