Michele Abbott is an assistant policy researcher at the RAND Corporation and a Ph.D. candidate at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. Her research interests include systems analysis and multi-sector solutions to complex social problems. At RAND, Abbott conducts mixed-methods research and evaluation of community health and well-being interventions, both in the U.S. and internationally. Abbott’s dissertation develops a grounded theory model of household resilience and conducts a realist evaluation of a household-centered care intervention on the social determinants of health in Miami, FL.
Prior to RAND, Abbott worked at Abt Associates on USAID-funded global health projects across East Africa. At Abt, she delivered national-level capacity building in health systems strengthening and conducted evaluations of community-based interventions for vulnerable populations. Abbott attended the University of Maryland where she completed the Quality Enhancement Systems and Teams (QUEST) Honors program; served as a research fellow for the Center for Health Information and Decision Systems (CHIDS); and received a B.S. in international business and a minor in English.
Selected Publications
Lynsay Ayer, Dana Schultz, Mental Health Task-Shifting in Community-Based Organizations (RR-3083-MFANYC)
Schmitt Olabisi, Laura; Azhar, Gulrez; Abbott, Michele; Lempert, Robert J., "Participatory modeling of climate change impacts on public health in Long Beach, California," RAND Health Quarterly, 8(1), 2018
Abbott, Michele; Ramchand, Rajeev.; Chamberlin, Margaret.; Marcellino, William, "Detecting Changes in Newspaper Reporting of Suicide after a Statewide Social Marketing Campaign," Health Communication, 2017
Melinda Moore, Laura J. Faherty, Shira H. Fischer, Kathryn E. Bouskill, Julie DaVanzo, Claude Messan Setodji, Bill Gelfeld, Emily Hoch, Luke J. Matthews, Sarah Weilant, Michele Abbott, Gabriela Armenta, Rouslan I. Karimov, Adeyemi Theophilus Okunogbe, Uza, Evaluation of Two Programs Supporting Global Family Planning Data Needs (RR-2112-BMGF)
Abbott, Michele; Bazilian, Morgan; Egel, Daniel; Willis, Henry H., "Examining the Food-Energy-Water and Conflict Nexus," Current Opinion in Chemical Engineering, 18, 2017