Kartika Palar, PhD

Kartika Palar, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Division of HIV, Infectious Disease and Global Medicine at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF). She completed her PhD in Policy Analysis at the RAND Graduate School in 2012, and received post-doctoral training in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the UCLA School of Public Health as well as in the Department of Medicine at San Francisco General Hospital/UCSF. Her interdisciplinary research focuses on the social determinants of health in HIV, diabetes and other chronic diseases, with over 20 publications addressing the intersection between food insecurity, subsistence needs and health. She is co-Principal Investigator of the Changing Health through Food Support (CHEFS) Study, a randomized-controlled trial testing the impact of medically-appropriate food support on health outcomes among food-insecure people living with HIV (PLHIV), and is a central contributor to the Cardiac Recovery through Dietary Support (CaRDS) Study testing a similar medically-tailored food intervention among low-income heart failure patients after hospital discharge. Both studies are based in the San Francisco Bay Area in collaboration with community-based organization Project Open Hand. She is also the Principal Investigator of the 5-year Women, HIV/AIDS and Diabetes (WAND) Study, investigating the role of social and economic factors, including food and housing insecurity, on diabetes health among US women living with HIV. International work includes an upcoming study to examine the impact of urban gardening on cardiovascular disease risk factors among food-insecure PLHIV in the Dominican Republic. Dr. Palar’s research is funded by the National Institutes of Health, Kaiser Community Benefits, and the UCSF-Gladstone Centers for AIDS Research (CFAR). She was recently awarded the CFAR Early Career Investigator Award of Excellence in Behavioral Research for her work addressing social determinants of health in HIV.