Faculty

Kaumudi Joshipura

Dean & Susmita and Subroto Bagchi Professor of Public Health

ScD (Harvard University)

Research Interests: Global Health, Planetary Health, Climate Change, Cardiometabolic and other Non-Communicable Disease, Modifiable Lifestyle factors, COVID-19, Epidemiology, Nutrition, Oral Health, Health Promotion, Pregnancy outcomes, COVID-19.

Profile

Kaumudi Joshipura joined Ahmedabad University as the Dean of the Bagchi School of Public Health and the Susmita and Subroto Bagchi Professor in Public Health in 2023. Professor Joshipura is also an Adjunct Professor of Epidemiology at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health (HSPH). She served as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Endowed Chair and as Director of the Center for Clinical Research and Health Promotion (CCRHP) at the University of Puerto Rico Medical Sciences Campus.

Professor Joshipura has a Master's degree in Biostatistics and a Doctorate in Epidemiology from Harvard University (completed in a record time of two years). Her research (H-index 66) has focused on evaluating lifestyle factors, microbial and inflammatory markers, and other modifiable risk factors for cardiometabolic and other non-communicable diseases. Her recent work includes hurricane preparedness and COVID-19. She has mentored numerous students and faculty and led several NIH-funded projects, including cohort studies, a randomised controlled trial, and a mentoring grant.

She has served on several editorial boards and is currently the inaugural Chief Editor for an open-access Frontiers journal, now PubMed and Scopus indexed with over 1000 editors/reviewers. At HSPH, she developed and taught methodological and substantive courses, co-directed training grants. She is on the steering committee for the Master of Public Health programme in Epidemiology. She has served as an advisor to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the American Association of Periodontology (AAP), and the World Health Organization (WHO). She is serving on the American Public Health Association advisory committee on Climate and Health Equity.

She focuses on identifying and promoting preventive measures that are free, low-cost, or cost-saving, and that can be adopted widely and globally. To this end, she founded a global public movement, "VMove" (read "We Move" https://www.vmovement.org/), to help individuals and organisations incorporate physical activity throughout the day. VMove, launched at a TEDx talk, aims to reduce the risk of several chronic diseases by promoting "CreActivity" (creative physical activity) in different settings to enable people to overcome barriers, change norms and move more throughout the day in a fun manner, and encouraging everyone to help spread and lead the movement. She has also written songs to translate research into action (to reduce sedentary time and single-use plastic). She is passionate about improving both human and planetary health and promoting wellness.

Research

Professor Joshipura has established interdisciplinary research teams and projects and has been continuously funded by NIH and other agencies since 1993. Her recent research projects as Principal Investigator include the following:

A cohort study titled San Juan Overweight Adults Longitudinal Study (SOALS), which has led to several funded ancillary studies.
A randomised clinical trial to reduce excess gestational weight gain and childhood obesity and improve cardiometabolic health, titled Pregnancy and EARly Lifestyle Improvement Study (PEARLS).
PREPARE, a longitudinal study to inform and improve hurricane preparedness efforts at organisation and individual levels.
PREPCOVI, an automated digital surveillance study for COVID-19 and influenza.
A longitudinal study to understand the inter-relationships between oral microbiome, nitric oxide metabolism, and oral and cardiovascular health.

Her publications have made a global impact, as evidenced by news coverage from CNN, Newsweek, Prevention, Forbes, UK Telegraph, and others.

Publications

Books and Monographs

Joshipura KJ and Ryan L. Analysis of EST 1284. Phase II study of new treatment in esophageal carcinoma. Dana Farber Cancer Institute. Technical Report 604E, 1989.
Joshipura KJ. Oral health, nutrition, and coronary heart disease. [Doctoral dissertation]. Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard University, 1995. 89 pp. Thesis Advisor: Dr. Walter Willett
Joshipura KJ and Douglass CW. Dentists’ health: putting your money where your mouth is. Oral Care Report. Vol. 2. 1998.
Contributor. US Dept. of Health and Human Services. Oral health in America: A report of the Surgeon General. Rockville, MD: US Dept. of Health and Human Services, National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, National Institutes of Health, 2000.
Joshipura KJ. Macronutrients, Micronutrients, and Oral Health. The Whitehall-Robins Report. 2002. Vol.No. 2.
Ritchie CS, Joshipura KJ. Chapter on “Oral health and Nutrition” for a textbook “Clinical Nutrition and Aging”. First Edition. Humana Press, Totowa, New Jersey. 2003.
Joshipura KJ, Douglass CW. Oral and Cardiovascular Disease Associations Do Not Call for Extraction of Teeth. The Yearbook of Dentistry. 2004: 298-301.
Contributor. Oral health in ageing societies: Integration of oral health and general health: Report of a meeting convened at the WHO Centre for Health Development in Kobe, Japan, 1-3 June 2005.
Advisory panel and workgroup member. Development of Self-Reported Measures for Population-Based Surveillance of Periodontitis: A Report from the CDC-AAP Workgroup. Supplement to Journal of Periodontology. Vol. 78. No. 7. 2007.
Joshipura KJ, Dietrich T. Chapter on “Nutrition and Oral Health: A two way Relationship” for a textbook “Clinical Nutrition and Aging”. Second Edition. Humana Press, Totowa, New Jersey. 2009.
Joshipura KJ, Palacios C. Chapter on “Nutrition and Oral Health: A two way Relationship” for a textbook “Clinical Nutrition and Aging”. Third Edition. Humana Press, Totowa, New Jersey. 2015.
Joshipura KJ, Andriankaja M. Chapter on “Modifiable systemic factors for periodontal disease prevention and management” for a textbook “Periodontal Disease: Diagnosis, Management Options and Clinical Features”. Nova Science Publishers, New York. 2016.
Joshipura KJ. Contributor. US Dept. of Health and Human Services. Oral health in America: A report of the Surgeon General. Rockville, MD: US Dept. of Health and Human Services, National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, National Institutes of Health, 2021. In Press.
Contributor. US Dept. of Health and Human Services. Oral health in America: A report of the Surgeon General. Rockville, MD: US Dept. of Health and Human Services, National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, National Institutes of Health, 2022.
Joshipura, KJ, Somerman, M., & Mouradian, W. E. (2020). Integrating Oral and Systemic Health: Innovations in Transdisciplinary Science, Health Care and Policy. Frontiers in Dental Medicine, 1, 15.

Peer reviewed Journals

Reviews, Commentaries, Letters, and Editorials

Joshipura KJ and Niederman R. Commentary: No good evidence for strong association of dental disease with coronary heart disease. Evidence Based Dentistry. 2000; 2: 64.
Joshipura KJ, Hu FB, Willett WC. Fruits and vegetables and coronary disease. Letter to the editor. Annals of Internal Medicine. 2003.
Hung HC, Willet W, Merchant A, Rosner BA, Ascherio A, Joshipura KJ. Association between nanobacteria and periodontal disease Circulation. Letter to the editor, authors’ response. 2003; 108 (8) 58-59.
Joshipura KJ, Ritchie C. Commentary: Can the Relation between Tooth Loss and Chronic Disease Be Explained by Socio-economic Status? European Journal of Epi. 2005; (20): 203-204.
Joshipura KJ. How can tooth loss affect diet and health, and what nutritional advice would you give to a patient scheduled for extractions? Journal of Canadian Dental Association. 2005; 71(6): 417-418.
Douglass CW, Joshipura K. Caution needed in fluoride and osteosarcoma study. Cancer causes Control 2006; 17(4): 481-482
Joshipura K. Exercise, high-quality diet, and maintaining normal weight are associated with reduced levels of periodontitis. J Evid Based Dent Pract. 2006; 6 (3): 230-231.
Joshipura K. Periodontal disease is inversely associated with respiratory allergies in patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus.J Evid Based Dent Pract. 2009 Jun;9(2):85-6.
Joshipura K. Glycemic control is not related to post-extraction healing in patients with diabetes. J Evid Based Dent Pract. 2011;11(4):187-8.
Joshipura KJ, Ascherio A, Manson JE. Fruit and vegetable intake decreased risk for ischemic stroke. ACP Journal Club. Etiology. 2000 May-June; 132:115
Joshipura KJ. Value of Predictive Values. J Dent Res. Letters to the Editor. October 2008. 87(10):e1.
Periodontal Disease is Inversely Associated with Respiratory Allergies in Patients with Type I Diabetes Mellitus. J Evid Based Dent Pract. 2009 9(2):85-6.
Van Dyke, T. E., Hatch, N. E., Joshipura KJ., Lane, N. E., Murshed, M., Nociti, F., Olsen, B., & Somerman, M. J. (2023). Editorial: Bone and metabolic activities. Frontiers in Dental Medicine, 4, 1244033.
Van Dyke TE, Hatch NE, Joshipura KJ, Lane NE, Murshed M, Nociti F, Olsen B, Somerman MJ. Editorial: Bone and metabolic activities. Front Dent Med. 2023;4:1244033. doi: 10.3389/fdmed.2023.1244033.