Bethany Caruso, Ph.D., MPH

Bethany Caruso is an Assistant Professor in the Hubert Department of Global Health. She received her BA from Wesleyan University, and completed her MPH in Global Health and PhD in Behavioral Sciences and Health Education at the Rollins School of Public Health (RSPH) at Emory University. From 2016-2019, Dr. Caruso received funding from the National Institutes of Public Health to complete a postdoc in the Environmental Health Department at RSPH, specifically as part of the Fellowship in Research and Science Teaching (FIRST) Program.

Dr. Caruso is a social and behavioral scientist with over a decade of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) sectoral research experience in low and middle income settings. She employs mixed methods approaches to understand how compromised WASH conditions impact physical and mental health, behavior, education, and empowerment, with a specific focus on girls and women throughout their life course. Her work includes application of qualitative methods, measurement development, hierarchical modeling approaches, theory-based intervention design, and impact and process evaluation. Her work emphasizes translation to policy and practice through public scholarship and engagement with policy-makers. She has carried out fieldwork in Kenya, India, Bangladesh, and Bolivia, and has supported research in over a dozen additional countries.