Allissa Desloge

Allissa Desloge is a doctoral student in the Community Health Sciences department, concentrating in Maternal and Child Health. She received her B.A. in Public Health from the University of South Carolina (2017) and her MPH in Health Policy and Global Health from the Yale School of Public Health (2019). While at Yale, Allissa was a graduate fellow for the Connecticut Commission on Women, Children and Seniors (CWCS) where she assisted with advocacy efforts for the Connecticut Paid Family and Medical Leave Program and the Medicaid Reimbursement for Doulas Act. Her thesis examined barriers and enables scaling up Group Prenatal Care (GPNC) in the US.

Her previous work experience has intertwined maternal and child health with noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) such as diabetes and mental health. She has interned with the World Health Organization where she reviewed national policy plans and implementation research projects that aim to improve health outcomes throughout the lifespan. Most recently, she spent a year in Melbourne, Australia undertaking a fellowship to improve her research skills in implementation science and psychosocial outcomes. While in Australia, Allissa also spent time at a non-profit that provided doula services to women in underserved communities where she was able to conduct evaluation surveys aimed at understanding the impact that doulas can have on birth experiences.

Since starting at UIC, Allissa has worked as a research assistant to evaluate health programs like Family Connects Chicago and the statewide Prevention and Management of Diabetes, Heart Disease, and Stroke. Currently, Allissa is working as an RA for Dr. Crystal Patil in the UIC College of Nursing on a randomized controlled trial titled “Group Antenatal Care: Effectiveness for Maternal/Infant and HIV Prevention Outcomes and Contextual Factors Linked to Implementation Success in Malawi." For her dissertation, she is using secondary outcomes data from this trial to examine the impact of group antenatal care on mental health and the relationship between mental health and maternal and infant outcomes.

Allissa's interests in maternal and child health include addressing noncommunicable diseases, including mental health, during pregnancy in order to improve maternal and infant outcomes in both local and global contexts.

After finishing her PhD, Allissa hope to use both quantitative and qualitative methods to continue researching policies and programs that address adverse maternal health outcomes in order to positively impact the long-term health of mothers and their children throughout their respective life courses.

Fun Fact- Allissa conquered her fear of heights by bungee jumping off of the original bungee jumping site near Queenstown, New Zealand.