Anna Localio is pursuing her passions for social equity and nutrition policy through her PhD in Health Services. Dr. Emily C. Williams, a professor in HSPop and the Director of the Health Services Doctoral Program, described Localio as “an outstanding scholar-citizen, a rising star in policy-relevant social epidemiology and health services research related to food access, and an exemplary community member.” Localio is also now the recipient of the prestigious Outstanding PhD Student Award given to exceptional students in the School of Public Health.
After completing her BA in Sociology at Boston College and her Master’s degree in Public Health from the University of Pennsylvania, Localio came to UW to focus her training on quantitative research methods and nutrition and food policy. In her second year, she connected with Dr. Jessica Jones-Smith, an expert in nutrition-related social determinants of health. As a research assistant, Localio studied how the Community Eligibility Provision, a federal universal free school meals policy, impacted obesity. For her dissertation, she chose to expand upon this work by examining the policy’s impact on high blood pressure in kids, an issue of growing concern.
Early childhood interventions
“I’m inspired by this work because of the reach of the policy (nearly 20 million children nationwide attend schools participating in the policy) and its potential to impact population health by addressing upstream social determinants like income constraints,” Localio said. “If the policy does positively impact health, and emerging evidence, including from our research team, suggests that it may, that has important and immediate implications for policymaking and funding decisions. If, hypothetically, we didn’t find evidence that it improved health, that would open up a lot of interesting research questions regarding how implementation of the policy could be improved.”
The best public health policies intervene in early childhood to improve health later in life while targeting both broad populations and vulnerable populations, and “Ms. Localio is hitting these two targets out of the park,” said Dr. Williams.
“Ms. Localio’s dissertation has the potential to meaningfully inform policy for school-aged children—a key time/population for intervening to improve population health. Anna’s dissertation addresses a key gap in current research and practice—effective population-level interventions to reduce high blood pressure in children,” she continued.
“If the policy does positively impact health, and emerging evidence, including from our research team, suggests that it may, that has important and immediate implications for policymaking and funding decisions.”
Anna Localio
Localio has also contributed to the School of Public Health as a standing member of the UW Department of Health Systems and Population Health Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Committee, a participant in Visit Days for the PhD program, and a peer mentor for first year Health Services PhD students.
She also cited her service as a Jesuit Volunteer at the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona as a “defining experience” of her life and career. Working in the Gabrielle Giffords Family Assistance Center, she assisted clients with applications for benefits like SNAP, WIC, and Medicaid. Most of the clients were Spanish-speaking, and many were undocumented and applying for benefits for their children.
Helping families overcome barriers to benefits
“I quickly learned how many barriers clients face to accessing these benefits, including being required to stand in line for hours to be interviewed and being unfairly denied benefits with no explanation, despite being eligible,” Localio reflected. “At the same time, when clients did successfully access these benefits, I saw what a profound positive impact it had for them and their families. That experience motivated my desire to pursue a research career in public health policy. Although I really loved working directly with clients, I believed a research career would allow me to have a greater impact by working to improve these systems to better serve low-income Americans.”
In her spare time, she enjoys gardening, yoga, paddle-boarding, hiking, and skiing in the Pacific Northwest.