Sue Grady, Assistant Professor, Michigan State University, and Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Epidemiology, State University of New York at Albany, USA. Dr. Grady’s principal research focus is health disparities and the reproductive health of African-American women in the United States. She is also interested in health disparities internationally, and population determinants of health transition theory. Sue served on the board of the HMGSG from 2008-2011.
Dr. Grady began her career as a Registered Nurse in the 1980s in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She specialized in cardiovascular surgical intensive care. She volunteered with the Children s Heart Fund in Honduras working with physicians and nurses on the post-operative care of children with valve replacements due to rheumatic heart disease. She traveled between the extremes of health care caring for patients with similar medical conditions but a very different set of resources. Dr. Grady became interested in medical (health) geography after meeting Dr. Connie Weil who introduced her to the model of human ecology. She completed her B.A. degree in geography from the University of Minnesota during which time she studied malnutrition and infectious diseases in children in Bogot, Colombia. Subsequently, Dr. Grady obtained an M.P.H. degree from Tulane University (1992) in International Health and worked on various projects in Honduras, Zimbabwe, and Uganda. She also holds a masters degree in Anthropology from Hunter College and a certificate in Demography. Dr. Grady received her Ph.D. (2005) from the City University of New York, Graduate Center, where she studied under the direction of Dr. Sara McLafferty, who, at the time, was at Hunter College. Sue’s dissertation addressed the afflictions of low birthweight and residential segregation in New York City at the turn of the 21st century. Sue conceptualizes racial segregation as a ‘place’ environment in which African-American women are exposed to an array of social and environmental hazards, which may independently or interactively adversely impact reproductive health outcomes. She has published in such mainline journals as Urban Geography, Social Science Medicine, International Journal of Health Geographics, and American Journal of Public Health
Sue may be contacted at gradys@msu.edu.
Updated: April 2010
Health and Medical Geography 