We are excited to introduce Dr. Wilton Choi as a new Global Health, Management and Policy Assistant Professor at the School of Public Health.
Early in his academic career, Dr. Choi became motivated to work in global health after a field trip to the Fiji Islands. During this trip, he met a rice farmer who experienced diabetes and suffered from alcohol addiction. This condition ultimately interfered with his ability to work, causing financial instability for him and his family – a classic example of the “health-poverty trap,” where low income leads to poor health, and poor health in turn increases the difficulty of earning a higher income. “This experience prompted me to investigate solutions,” Dr. Choi explained, so he pursued his doctoral degree in order to learn more about how government policies could help relieve the effects of financial burdens on the healthcare that individuals receive. “I realized [during the doctoral program] that academia allows you to dive into long-term projects in collaboration with interdisciplinary research teams,” Dr. Choi recounted. “This led me to choose to be a professor as my career path”.
Now he is working on projects examining how supportive and punitive immigration policies affect access to maternity care, which are centered on minority populations in the United States. With this study he is looking to see whether supportive state policies can improve access to maternity care among the vulnerable populations, especially in the context of restrictive federal policies. “I dream of a day when access to maternity care for the vulnerable populations has improved so dramatically that there is no longer a need to conduct research on maternity care disparities,” Dr. Choi reflected. However, more data on nationwide maternity care is needed to be able to achieve that dream. “I also want to study whether state and federal government policies designed to improve maternity care access for vulnerable populations actually achieve their intended outcomes,” Dr. Choi stated.
When asked what else he wants to share with everyone that is reading the newsletter he expressed that he is determined in helping reduce maternal health disparities and welcomes the possibility of new collaborators. Dr. Choi can be reached at schoi6@sdsu.edu.
