My name is Abigail Kappelman. I am a fellow of the University of Michigan Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP). I am dually pursuing an MD from the Medical School and a PhD in social epidemiology from the School of Public Health (Dept. of Epidemiology).
Combining my prior graduate training in Economics (MA '20) and my current work in public health, I apply both epidemiologic and econometric methods to understand how circumstances generate health. I care deeply about and believe strongly in the need to leverage interdisciplinary, data-driven methods to examine disparities and understand inequities in health to better inform policy and action. I aspire to become a physician-scientist with a career at the intersection of medicine and social policy development, research, and analysis.
As a PhD candidate, for my dissertation I study the intergenerational transmission of health and social status. I particularly focus on birth outcomes, and the association between racial disparities in social mobility and in preterm birth and low birth weight. In adjacent work as an MD candidate, I conduct health services research broadly related to the de-implementation of low value surgical care, race and sex-based disparities in surgical outcomes, and the development of methodologies to better measure patient-reported outcomes. Finally, I have a collaborative body of work that investigates (among other things) firm disclosure and the economics of compliance; gun purchasing and legislation, mass shooting events, and firearms-related morbidity and mortality; survey methodology; political participation and birth outcomes; and the measurement of structural racism over time.