Dr. Melody Schiaffino

Biography

Melody K. Schiaffino is a bilingual, bi-cultural health services researcher and epidemiologist specializing in health disparities related to population health, service delivery, and quality outcomes. She earned her PhD in Health Services Research from the University of Florida in 2014, where she studied the role of social-spatial context in disparities in language services delivery in hospitals, developing a novel method to assess hospital service areas on a finer, neighborhood-like scale. She also holds an MPH in Epidemiology, focusing on HPV and cancer epidemiology from the University of South Florida, awarded in 2008. Her research interests include health system disparities, the social-spatial context, and the role of care fragmentation in the delivery of quality cancer care. Dr. Schiaffino's goal is to develop statistical and computational models to predict the risk of cancer treatment toxicity in older adults with limited English proficiency. She aims to identify intervention points to improve outcomes within this population. Currently, she is studying patient-provider networks to visualize and assess care delivery fragmentation and its effect on timely access to colorectal cancer care using large administrative data sets. Her approaches integrate diverse data formats with organizational, spatial perspectives and population factors to ensure cultural competence in the patient-provider context. She has published her work in high-impact journals such as Health Affairs and the Journal of Infectious Diseases and has presented at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Dr. Schiaffino is also an Associate Member at the Moores Cancer Center at UC San Diego and a visiting researcher in Radiation Oncology at Dr. Murphy's Lab. Additionally, she has been mentoring students through SDSU's Faculty-Student Mentoring Program, focusing on research fields including public health, geography, MIS, statistics, sociology, computer science, and nursing.

Research Interests