Presenters' Bios - The Changing Face of Children's Health: Results From the National Survey of Children's Health

Gopal K. Singh, Ph.D., is an epidemiologist with the Maternal and Child Health Bureau, Health Resources & Services Administration, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Rockville, Maryland. His research interests include social inequalities in health and mortality, child health disparities by ethnicity and socioeconomic deprivation, obesity and physical activity, immigrant health, and spatial and time trends in cancer incidence and mortality. He has held research appointments at the National Cancer Institute, Kansas Health Institute, and National Center for Health Statistics. He has taught at the University of Kansas Medical Center and Ohio State University and has served as a statistical consultant to the US Agency for International Development and the Government of Egypt. He has published extensively in the field of health inequalities, immigrant health, obesity and physical activity, minority health, cancer epidemiology, and maternal and child health. Dr. Singh holds a doctorate in Sociology/Demography from the Ohio State University; a Master's of Science degree in Population Planning from the University of Michigan; a Post-Master's Diploma in Population Studies from the International Institute for Population Sciences, Bombay; and a Master's of Science degree in Statistics from India.

Dr. Reem M. Ghandour is a public health analyst with the Maternal and Child Health Bureau's Office of Data and Program Development. Reem conducts research on issues related to maternal and child health using Bureau-supported data sets, including the National Survey of Children's Health and the National Survey of Children with Special Health Care Needs. Her areas of interest include children's mental health, intimate partner and family violence, and health disparities among women and children. She also serves as the project manager for the development and dissemination of the annual Women's Health USA and Child Health USA data books, as well as the Bureau representative for Healthy People 2020 through which she supports MCHB's programmatic efforts to improve the health and well-being of mothers, infants, and children, including those with special health care needs. Reem joined the Federal Government as a Presidential Management Fellow following the completion of her Masters degree in Public Administration from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University in 2001. She received her Doctor of Public Health from the Department of Population, Family, and Reproductive Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2009 where she was the recipient of an Interdisciplinary Research Training Grant on Violence supported through the National Institute of Mental Health and the John and Alice Chenoweth-Pate Fellowship in Maternal and Child Health.

Jessica Jones holds a MPH in Maternal and Child Health Epidemiology from Tulane University and a BA in International Affairs from the George Washington University. Ms. Jones is currently a Public Health Analyst for the Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration in the Maternal and Child Health Bureau. In this capacity she is responsible for assisting in the analysis of the National Survey on Children's Health. Prior to joining the Maternal and Child Health Bureau, Ms. Jones worked for a local non-profit organization where she conducted analysis of several evaluation projects designed to increase the sustainability and effectiveness of community-based organizations. During her time at Tulane, Ms. Jones assisted with several studies on the effect of maternal exposure to Hurricane Katrina on postpartum depression and pregnancy outcomes. Ms. Jones also conducted state-level research on the effect of perinatal HIV exposure on adverse birth outcomes, and received first place for her presentation at the 14th Annual Maternal and Child Health Epidemiology Conference for her poster entitled "Perinatal HIV Exposure and Adverse Birth Outcomes". Her other research interests include breastfeeding promotion, health disparities, medical home access and learning disabilities.