Mariana’s work, at the intersection and public health and urban planning, explores dynamic relationships between place and health. Mariana’s scholarly research investigates how the environment -including built, social, and economic conditions affects health. Reciprocally, she also explores how health shapes socioeconomic outcomes for individuals and communities. Her applied and translational research on the social determinants of health tackles the ways in which urban policy and planning decisions shape health risk factors. In both her scholarly and applied work, Mariana maintains a focus on health disparities, social justice, and environmental sustainability. Methodologically, she uses quantitative approaches, including multilevel modeling, spatial statistics, and latent variable modeling, to better understand place and its affect on health. Prior to joining the EPP faculty, Mariana completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies. She holds a Doctorate of Science from the Harvard School of Public Health, and a Master of City Planning from DUSP. Mariana’s professional work experience includes instituting and managing a Public Health Division within Metropolitan Boston’s regional planning agency,designing and overseeing the implementation of municipal-level healthy urban planning strategies, and developing a Health Impact Assessment program at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies.
Cambridge, MA 02138
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, MA
Dissertation: Spillover effects of the housing and unemployment crisis on health
Advisor: S V Subramanian
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
Concentration: Housing, Community, and Economic Development
Advisor: Xavier de Souza Briggs
Duke University, Durham, NC
Department of Urban Studies and Planning
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Metropolitan Area Planning Council
Boston, MA
Metropolitan Area Planning Council
Boston, MA
Metropolitan Area Planning Council
Boston, MA
Mariana's research explores dynamic relationships between geographic contexts, particularly neighborhoods, and health. Mariana pursues scholarly and policy-relevant research in two main streams. First, she analyze bi-directional relationships between place and health. This includes exploring how health shapes socioeconomic outcomes for individuals and communities, and estimating how specific contextual exposures affect health. Second, she conduct applied and translational research on the social determinants of health. Methodologically, Mariana focus on the analysis of statistically dependent data, including spatial, longitudinal, social network, and hierarchical data.
Healthy Neighborhoods Equity Fund
The Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) and other partners are creating a $30 million private equity fund that will enable the development of mixed-income, mixed-use transit-oriented projects across Massachusetts. The Fund will use a “Quadruple Bottom Line” approach to evaluating projects that includes a consideration of community, environmental, and health impacts in addition to financial returns. One of the Fund’s long-term goals is to enhance current knowledge of the relationship between the built environment and health. We propose launching a longitudinal research study on the Fund’s effects in partnership with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH), the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC), the Harvard School of Public Health Center for Population and Development Studies (HSPH), and other local and national experts.
Health Impact Assessment Program
Our team is conducting a Health Impact Assessment (HIA) on state funding for the Small Business Technical Assistance Program, which provides technical assistance and training grants to assist small businesses located in underserved communities in Massachusetts. Several smaller assessments of criminal justice reform- and immigration- related proposals would serve as the backbone of HIA workshops for public health students, practitioners, and community organizers. Linking natural constituents for HIA at the community-level, researchers eager to inform evidence-based decision-making, and experienced state agency HIA practitioners will help to seed a "bottom-up," sustainable approach for considering health in all policies that can withstand political trends or changes in state leadership.
Measure Development for a Randomized Affordable Housing Experiment in Boston’s Chinatown
Despite ample observational evidence suggesting that insecure and unaffordable housing negatively affects health, experimental studies are lacking. In the spring of 2015, the Asian Community Development Corporation, a non-profit housing developer based in Boston’s Chinatown, will open a housing lottery for low-income applicants seeking affordable rental housing in a 363-unit, mixed income housing development, currently under construction. The lottery will determine placement in 95 units of affordable rental housing units. A later lottery will allocate the opportunity to buy 51 affordable condominiums. The project is currently developing, pilot testing, and translating a baseline health and housing screening tool that Asian Community Development Corporation will administer to housing lottery applicants prior to randomization.
Disparities in Recovery from Hurricane Katrina: NOLA@10
We propose extending three existing cohort studies of Hurricane Katrina survivors to understand the mechanisms by which disasters affect the mental and physical health of vulnerable populations over the long-term. The study takes advantage of prospectively collected, multidimensional pre-disaster baseline data and two waves of geocoded post-disaster surveys. Analyses are designed to investigate how individual- and community-level factors shape recovery trajectories. In addition to its contribution to disaster research, the inclusion of individuals involuntarily displaced to new neighborhoods provides a unique opportunity to explore contextual effects on health.
Master's Thesis Preparation
11.THG
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Medicine and Disease in Social Context
Soc190
Harvard University
Insights and Actions
Healthy Places Seminar Series
Harvard School of Public Health
Lessons from Hurricane Katrina
Commissioner’s Brown Bag Series
New York City Department of Health & Mental Hygiene
Health+Planning@DUSP Spring Speakers Series
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Department of Urban Studies and Planning
Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies Seminar Series
Harvard University
Multilevel statistical methods: concept and application (SHH 263)
Harvard School of Public Health
Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies Seminar Series
Harvard University
Housing Community and Economic Development Luncheon Lecture
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Department of Urban Studies and Planning
Housing and Community Development (MET UA 503)
Boston University
Envisioning Sustainable Cities
Lesley University
Anticipated | 2016
Tatjana Trebic
Anticipated | 2016
Shin Bin Tan
Anticipated | 2017
Arcaya M, Graif C, Waters MC, Subramanian SV. "Health selection into neighborhoods among Moving to Opportunity families." American Journal of Epidemiology. (In press)
James P, Hart J, Arcaya MC, Feskanich D, Laden F, Subramanian S.V. "Neighborhood Self-Selection: The Role of Pre-Move Health Factors on the Post-Move Built and Socioeconomic Environment." International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. (In press)
Yasaitis, L.C., Arcaya, M.C., Subramanian, S.V. "Comparison of estimation methods for creating small area rates of acute myocardial infarction among Medicare beneficiaries in California." Health Place 2015: 35, JHAPD1500246. doi:10.1016/j.healthplace.2015.08.003
Arcaya, M.C., Arcaya, A.L., Subramanian, S.V., 2015. "Inequalities in health: definitions, concepts, and theories." Global Health Action 2015: 8.
Arcaya, M, Lowe SR, Rhodes J, Subramanian SV, Waters M. "Association of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms with Asthma Attacks among Hurricane Katrina Survivors." Journal of Traumatic Stress. 2014 Dec; 27(6): 725–729
Arcaya, M, Subramanian SV, Rhodes J, Waters M. "Health as a determinant of neighborhood attainment: An analysis of health selection into neighborhoods following Hurricane Katrina." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2014 Oct 20; 201416950
Kozhimannil K, Arcaya M, Subramanian SV. "Clinical Characteristics Do Not Drive Variation in Hospital Cesarean Delivery Rates: A Retrospective Multi-Level Analysis." PLOS Medicine. 2014 Oct 21;11(10): e1001745.
James P, Ito K, Peterson S, Banay R, Buonocore J, Wood B, Arcaya M. "A Health Impact Assessment of a proposed bill to decrease speed limits on local roads in Massachusetts (U.S.A.)." International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2014: 11(10), 10269-10291.
James P, Ito K, Peterson S, Buonocore J, Levy J, Arcaya M. "A Health Impact Assessment of proposed public transportation service cuts and fare increases in Boston, Massachusetts (USA)." International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2014;11(8):8010–24.
James P, Arcaya M, Parker D, Tucker-Seeley R, Subramanian SV. "Do minority and poor neighborhoods have higher access to fast-food restaurants in the United States?" Health & Place. Jun 16;29C:10–7.
Arcaya M, Glymour MM, Chakrabarti P, Christakis NA, Kawachi I, Subramanian SV. "Effects of proximate foreclosed properties on individuals' systolic blood pressure in Massachusetts, 1987-2008." Circulation. 2014 Jun 3;129(22):2262–8.
Arcaya M, James P, Rhodes J, Waters MC, Subramanian SV. "Urban Sprawl and Body Mass Index Among Displaced Hurricane Katrina Survivors." Preventive Medicine. Online. April 13, 2014. DOI 10.1016/j.ypmed.2014.04.006
Arcaya M, Glymour MM, Christakis NA, Kawachi I, Subramanian SV. "Individual, Spousal, and Area-Level Unemployment as predictors of smoking and drinking behavior." Social Science & Medicine. 2014. 110, 89-95. DOI 10.1016/j.socscimed.2014.03.034
Calvo R, Arcaya M, Baum C, Lowe SR, Waters MC. "Happy Ever After? A Natural Experiment of the Set-Point Theory of Happiness with Survivors of Hurricane Katrina." Journal of Happiness Studies. 04 March 2014; DOI 10.1007/s10902-014-9516-5
Arcaya M, Reardon T, Vogel J, Andrew B, Wenjun L, Land T. "Tailoring Community-Based Wellness Initiatives with Latent Class Analysis – An Application in the two Massachusetts Community Transformation Grant Projects." Preventing Chronic Disease. 2014 Feb; 11, E21. doi:10.5888/pcd11.130215
Arcaya M, Glymour MM, Chakrabarti P, Christakis NA, Kawachi I, Subramanian SV. "Effects of proximate foreclosed properties on individuals’ weight gain in Massachusetts, 1987-2008." American Journal of Public Health. 2013 Sep;103(9):e50–56.
Cáceres IA, Arcaya M, Declercq E, Belanoff CM, Janakiraman V, Cohen B, Ecker J, Smith L, Subramanian SV. "Hospital Differences in Cesarean Deliveries in Massachusetts (US) 2004–2006: The Case against Case-Mix Artifact." PLOS ONE. 2013 Mar 18;8(3):e57817.
Arcaya M, Brewster M, Zigler C, Subramanian SV. "Area Variations in Health: a Spatial Multilevel Modeling Approach." Journal of Health and Place. 2012 Jul;18(4):824-31
Arcaya M, Briggs X. "Despite obstacles, considerable potential exists for more robust federal policy on community development and health." Health Affairs. 2011 Nov;30(11):2064-71.
Arcaya M, Subramanian SV. “Ecological inferences and multilevel studies” in The Handbook of Regional Science. Fischer M and Congdon P (Eds). Springer Science, Heidelberg. 2014.
James P, Ito K, Arcaya M. Massachusetts Speed Limit Bill, Health Impact Assessment. Metropolitan Area Planning Council and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. October, 2012.
Molina J, Ito K, James P, Arcaya M. Quequechan River Rail Trail Phase 2, Health Impact Assessment. Metropolitan Area Planning Council and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. October, 2012.
James P, Bounocore J, Levy J, Arcaya M. A Healthy T for a Healthy Region: A Health Impact Assessment of Proposed MBTA Service Cuts and Fare Increases. Metropolitan Area Planning Council, March 14, 2012. http://www.mapc.org/resources/health-impact-assessment
Chakrabarti P, Arcaya M. New Ideas for Old REOs: A Disposition Framework for Marketing REOs for Rental Properties. New England Community Developments, 2012(1).
Arcaya M, Grogan J. The State of Equity in MetroBoston. Metropolitan Area Planning Council, December 13, 2011. www.regionalindicators.org/equity
Raitt, J and Arcaya, M. Foreclosure: Community Impacts, Prevention, and Stabilization Strategies. PAS Memo. September/October 2010
Kruckenberg, K., Small, J., Tegeler, P., and Arcaya, M. Connecting Families to Opportunity: a Resource Guide for Housing Choice Voucher Program Administrators. Poverty and Race Research Action Council. July 2009. http://www.prrac.org/pdf/connectingfamilies.pdf