Lakshmi Gopalakrishnan, PhD
Assistant Researcher
GHS - Programs
Chancellor/EVC/FAS

My current research projects include developing and testing a life-skills and health empowerment-based intervention to reduce unintended pregnancies among newly married couples in rural Rajasthan; examining the effectiveness of a digital health intervention to improve postnatal health outcomes for women through a multi-site randomized controlled trial in India.

My dissertation was focused on understanding the pathways between gender norms, women’s empowerment, and their impact on women’s health and well-being in South Asia.

I have 14 years of relevant work experience in public health and social determinants of health including education, gender, and nutrition in nonprofit and private sector organizations with funding agencies including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (formerly DFID), UNICEF, UNFPA, World Bank, and private sector foundations. I also hold a Master of Public Health in Maternal and Child Health from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on a Fulbright Scholarship and a Master of Science in Information Systems from the London School of Economics.

• Exploratory qualitative study examining acceptability of strategies to improve access to substance use treatment and HIV prevention services for young adults on probation in Ukraine.
  BMJ open 2022 Dauria E, Skipalska H, Gopalakrishnan L, Savenko O, Sabadash L, Tolou-Shams M, Flanigan T, Navario P, Castillo TP
• Barriers to maternal and reproductive health care in India due to COVID-19
  Advances in Global Health 2022 Diamond-Smith N, Gopalakrishnan L, Gutierrez S, Francis S, Saikia N, Patil S
• Can digitally enabling community health and nutrition workers improve services delivery to pregnant women and mothers of infants? Quasi-experimental evidence from a national-scale nutrition programme in India.
  BMJ global health 2022 Patil SR, Nimmagadda S, Gopalakrishnan L, Avula R, Bajaj S, Diamond-Smith N, Paul A, Fernald L, Menon P, Walker D
• Epidemiology and Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic in Kerala, India, 2020-2021: A Cross-Sectional Study.
  Tropical medicine and infectious disease 2022 Jaya AM, Harries AD, Rahman A, Khogali M, Chinnakali P, Gopalakrishnan LG, Pillai MN
• The development and feasibility of a group-based household-level intervention to improve preconception nutrition in Nawalparasi district of Nepal.
  BMC public health 2022 Diamond-Smith N, Mitchell A, Cornell A, Dahal M, Gopalakrishnan L, Johnson M, Weiser S, Puri M
• Is respectful care provided by community health workers associated with infant feeding practices? A cross sectional analysis from India.
  BMC health services research 2022 Diamond-Smith N, Gopalakrishnan L, Walker D, Fernald L, Menon P, Patil S
• Bringing juvenile justice and public health systems together to meet the sexual and reproductive health needs of justice-involved youth.
  The American journal of orthopsychiatry 2022 Tolou-Shams M, Dauria EF, Rosen RK, Clark MA, Spetz J, Levine A, Marshall BDL, Folk JB, Gopalakrishnan L, Nunn A, project emPOWER’D expert consultant panel
• Association between supportive supervision and performance of community health workers in India: a longitudinal multi-level analysis.
  Human resources for health 2021 Gopalakrishnan L, Diamond-Smith N, Avula R, Menon P, Fernald L, Walker D, Patil S
• The Ethical Implications of Using Social Media to Engage and Retain Justice-Involved Youth in Behavioral Health Research.
  Journal of empirical research on human research ethics : JERHRE 2021 Rodriguez CA, Gopalakrishnan L, Del Cid M, Folk JB, Yonek J, Tolou-Shams M
• Anganwadi worker time use in Madhya Pradesh, India: a cross-sectional study.
  BMC health services research 2020 Jain A, Walker DM, Avula R, Diamond-Smith N, Gopalakrishnan L, Menon P, Nimmagadda S, Patil SR, Fernald LCH
• Using mHealth to improve health care delivery in India: A qualitative examination of the perspectives of community health workers and beneficiaries.
  PloS one 2020 Gopalakrishnan L, Buback L, Fernald L, Walker D, Diamond-Smith N, in addition to The CAS Evaluation Consortium
• The Prospective Impact of Family Functioning and Parenting Practices on Court-Involved Youth's Substance Use and Delinquent Behavior.
  Journal of youth and adolescence 2019 Folk JB, Brown LK, Marshall BDL, Ramos LMC, Gopalakrishnan L, Koinis-Mitchell D, Tolou-Shams M
• Effects of an mHealth intervention for community health workers on maternal and child nutrition and health service delivery in India: protocol for a quasi-experimental mixed-methods evaluation.
  BMJ open 2019 Nimmagadda S, Gopalakrishnan L, Avula R, Dhar D, Diamond-Smith N, Fernald L, Jain A, Mani S, Menon P, Nguyen PH, Park H, Patil SR, Singh P, Walker D
• Lead exposure and visual-motor abilities in children from Chennai, India.
  Neurotoxicology 2011 Palaniappan K, Roy A, Balakrishnan K, Gopalakrishnan L, Mukherjee B, Hu H, Bellinger DC