Ann Weber, PhD, MPH

Assistant Professor
Ann Weber

Summary

Public health has made enormous progress in reducing infant and child mortality worldwide, but is falling short of ensuring that those children who survive are able to thrive. Much of my work has focused on applying rigorous epidemiologic and statistical methods to test the effectiveness of large-scale and integrated interventions aimed at improving child growth and development in low-income settings. The main goal of my research is to reduce health disparities that arise in situations of poverty, inadequate education, and gender and racial inequality - both domestically and globally. As a complementary area of research, I aim to develop and validate new metrics with which to assess interventions and the pathways to their success in diverse contexts. Because the goal of reducing disparities in child outcomes crosses disciplinary boundaries, so too has my research, which intersects with the fields of maternal health, nutrition, developmental psychology, education, biostatistics, and economics.

Publications

  • Weber, Ann M., Beniamino Cislaghi, Valerie Meausoone, Safa Abdalla, Iván Mejía-Guevara, Pooja Loftus, Emma Hallgren et al. "Gender norms and health: insights from global survey data." The Lancet, vol 393, issue 10189, P 2455-2468 (2019).
  • Galasso, Emanuela, Ann M. Weber, Christine P. Stewart, Lisy Ratsifandrihamanana, and Lia CH Fernald. "Effects of nutritional supplementation and home visiting on growth and development in young children in Madagascar: a cluster-randomised controlled trial." The Lancet Global Health, vol 7, issue 9, PE1257-E1268 (2019).
  • Weber, Ann M., Emanuela Galasso, and Lia CH Fernald. "Perils of scaling up: Effects of expanding a nutrition programme in Madagascar." Maternal & child nutrition 15 (2019): e12715.
  • Weber, Ann, Gary L. Darmstadt, Susan Gruber, Megan E. Foeller, Suzan L. Carmichael, David K. Stevenson, and Gary M. Shaw. "Application of machine-learning to predict early spontaneous preterm birth among nulliparous non-Hispanic black and white women." Annals of epidemiology 28, no. 11 (2018): 783-789.
  • Weber, Ann M., Virginia A. Marchman, D. I. O. P. Yatma, and Anne Fernald. "Validity of caregiver-report measures of language skill for Wolof-learning infants and toddlers living in rural African villages." Journal of child language 45, no. 4 (2018): 939-958.
  • Weber, Ann, Anne Fernald, and Yatma Diop. "When cultural norms discourage talking to babies: Effectiveness of a parenting program in rural Senegal." Child Development 88, no. 5 (2017): 1513-1526.
  • Weber, Ann, Gary L. Darmstadt, and Nirmala Rao. "Gender disparities in child development in the east Asia-Pacific region: a cross-sectional, population-based, multicountry observational study." The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health 1, no. 3 (2017): 213-224.
  • Weber, Ann, Anne Fernald, and Yatma Diop. "When cultural norms discourage talking to babies: Effectiveness of a parenting program in rural Senegal." Child Development 88, no. 5 (2017): 1513-1526.
  • Weber, Ann, Gary L. Darmstadt, and Nirmala Rao. "Gender disparities in child development in the east Asia-Pacific region: a cross-sectional, population-based, multicountry observational study." The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health 1, no. 3 (2017): 213-224.
  • Weber, Ann M., Lia CH Fernald, Emanuela Galasso, and Lisy Ratsifandrihamanana. "Performance of a receptive language test among young children in Madagascar." PloS one 10, no. 4 (2015): e0121767.
  • Weber, Ann M., Mark J. Van Der Laan, and Maya L. Petersen. "Assumption trade-offs when choosing identification strategies for pre-post treatment effect estimation: an illustration of a community-based intervention in Madagascar." Journal of causal inference 3, no. 1 (2015): 109-130.

Education

  • Ph.D., Epidemiology, University of California, Berkeley
  • MPH, Epidemiology & Biostatistics, University of California, Berkeley