Associate Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Michigan School of Public Health
Alexis Handal an Associate Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. Dr. Handal is a social epidemiologist with research expertise in occupational and environmental epidemiology, reproductive epidemiology, maternal and child health, and global health; in particular, she works with Latinx and Indigenous populations and communities in Latin America and in the United States. Her community-engaged research approach uses a health equity lens focusing on understanding the interconnection between chemical exposures and social and work stressors and support systems in the context of precarious employment, on worker health and on maternal and child health, and child growth and development. Dr. Handal values and promotes the use of community-based participatory research (CBPR) and mixed methods approaches in epidemiologic research.
Over the past two decades, Dr. Handal has worked in Ecuador studying the impact of export-led flower production on maternal and child health and child development. Her early studies identified important factors that may adversely impact child health and development such as toxic exposures, maternal stress, and nutritional deficiencies and malnutrition, to name a few. Building on these studies, currently, Dr. Handal collaborates with Dr. Fadya Orozco at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito on an NIEHS-funded birth cohort study, SEMILLA (R011ES026603), examining the impact of fungicidal exposure and other critical social stressors associated with the presence of the flower industry on pregnancy and subsequent infant health. Dr. Handal also leads the Michigan Farmworker Project, in collaboration with Dr. Lisbeth Iglesias-Rios – a CBPR program that examines the complex working and living conditions of farmworkers and their families in Michigan – an essential workforce for the US food system.
