Dr. Caitlyn Placek is a member of the Board of Directors of “Hope For Children” CRC Policy Center USA.

​

Caitlyn is a medical anthropologist who specializes in mixed methods research and program evaluation both in the United States and India. She earned a PhD in Anthropology from Washington State University in 2016 and served as a postdoctoral research fellow in Epidemiology with the Global Health Equity Scholars program (2016-2017), a consortium sponsored by the National Institutes of Health and Fogarty International Center, where she led a year-long collaborative study on substance use in India. She currently serves as Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Ball State University and Program Evaluator at Centerstone Research Institute.

​

Caitlyn’s research focuses on biocultural and environmental factors that give rise to substance use and other health behaviors in reproductive-aged women. She has co-authored over 20 peer-reviewed publications in anthropology and public health journals. In Indiana, she conducts research on opioid addiction during pregnancy and the post-partum period and has engaged with academic collaborators and community stakeholders to evaluate an addiction treatment center. She relies on a multi-scalar, social-ecological approach to understand the challenges women face in receiving drug treatment during pregnancy and the postpartum period and applies knowledge of these challenges to improve program outcomes. In addition, she has worked on numerous projects in India with collaborative teams that focus on substance use, dietary behaviors, health, and community education.