Growing up, Phoebe Tran thought she would be a doctor, like many in her family. She was drawn to give back to her rural Tennessee community, where through her volunteer work in high school she became keenly aware of health disparities through the many members of her community who had cardiovascular disease but had no health insurance. Phoebe was also inspired by those in the healthcare community who saved her eyesight.
In Depth
Student Spotlight – Phoebe Tran
As an undergraduate, her plan for how to do that shifted after she took a course in public health. She discovered that her love of math and biology meld beautifully into epidemiology and that is a powerful means to tackle health disparities. Now a second-year doctoral student in the Department of Chronic Disease Epidemiology, Phoebe is focusing her work on cardiovascular diseases and translational work. “It is important that interventions actually work for the communities being targeted,” says Phoebe. For example, messaging about making healthy eating choices in communities where people are struggling to survive are not attuned to their basic needs such as housing and putting food on the table. Those efforts, in places like Appalachia, might be better directed at enhancing food security and improving offerings from soup kitchens and the many food gatherings sponsored by the religious communities.