Anna Oksuzyan (AUA MPH 2001) is the Max Planck Research Group Leader entitled Gender Gaps in Health and Survival at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany – 07-11-2014

From February 2015 Anna Oksuzyan, MD, MPH, PhD will lead new Max Planck Research Group (MPRG) at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR), Rostock, Germany investigating why women outlive men in all countries, although women generally report worse health, the so-called male–female health-survival paradox (http://www.demogr.mpg.de). Past several years Dr. Oksuzyan has spent investigating whether behavioral factors contribute substantially to the explanation of gender differences in health and mortality using an exceptionally rich data resource of Danish register and survey data that resulted in a number of publications in international peer-reviewed journals.

Dr. Oksuzyan is a 2001 graduate of the American University of Armenia (AUA)’s Master of Public Health (MPH) Program and a former Project Coordinator at the Center for Health Services Research and Development, AUA-. In 2010, she earned her PhD from the Institute of Public Health, University of Southern Denmark (SDU), Odense, Denmark, where she continued working as a post-doctoral fellow in the Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Biodemography (EBB) Unit. Dr. Oksuzyan received the 2009 Annals of Epidemiology Best Paper Award nominated by the American College of Epidemiology. Oksuzyan et al article “The male-female health-survival paradox: a survey and register study of the impact of sex-specific selection and information bias” was one of the articles included into her PhD dissertation. In 2013 Dr. Oksuzyan was appointed as an Assistant Professor in the EBB Unit, SDU, where she is currently a Guest Researcher.

Together with her new research group and in collaboration with international partners she will investigate how universal the male-female health-survival paradox is across different countries and what is the role of biological, demographic, and social factors in driving the paradox.

The AUA School of Public Health works actively to improve the health of the populace and health services in Armenia and the region through interdisciplinary education and development of public health professionals and others to be leaders in public health, health services research and evaluation, and health care delivery and management.