Anita Chandra

Anita Chandra
Vice President and Director, RAND Social and Economic Well-Being; Senior Policy Researcher; Professor of Policy Analysis, Pardee RAND Graduate School
Washington Office

Education

Dr.P.H. in population and family health sciences, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; M.P.H. in maternal and child health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Public Health; B.A. in child development, Tufts University

Media Resources

This researcher is available for interviews.

To arrange an interview, contact the RAND Office of Media Relations at (310) 451-6913, or email media@rand.org.

More Experts

Overview

Anita Chandra (she/her) is vice president and director of RAND Social and Economic Well-Being and a senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation. The division manages RAND's Center to Advance Racial Equity Policy as well as other Centers on climate, housing, drug policy, policing, and civil justice. She leads studies on civic well-being and community planning; disaster response and resilience; public health emergency preparedness; health and health equity; child health and development, and effects of military deployment on families.

Throughout her career, Chandra has engaged government and nongovernmental partners to consider cross-sector solutions for improving community well-being and to build more robust systems, implementation, and evaluation capacity. This work has taken many forms, including engaging with federal and local government agencies on building systems for emergency preparedness and resilience both in the United States and globally; partnering with private sector organizations to develop the science base around child systems; and collaborating with city governments and foundations to modernize data systems and measure environmental sustainability, well-being, and civic transformation. Chandra has also partnered with community organizations to conduct broad-scale health and environmental needs assessments, to examine the integration of health and human service systems, and to determine how to integrate equity and address the needs of historically marginalized populations in human service systems. These projects have occurred in partnership with businesses, foundations, and other community organizations. Chandra earned a Dr.P.H. in population and family health sciences from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Recent Projects

  • Transforming public health data systems
  • Advancing healthy and equitable futures for children
  • Pandemic preparedness
  • Civic well-being strategy
  • Community resilience and disaster response

Recent Media Appearances

Interviews: ActionNewsJax.com; Associated Press; InvestHuman; Medical News Today; NBC; PBS; Psychology Today online; Time Magazine; Washington Post; WNPR

Commentary: Montgomery Advertiser; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Culture of Health blog; Santa Monica Daily Press

Commentary

Publications