Anna Shchetinina, PhD
Research Focus
Anna Shchetinina is a postdoctoral fellow in the Division of Chronic Disease Research Across the Lifecourse (CORAL) at the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute and Project Viva. Dr. Shchetinina investigates how prenatal and early-life exposures influence health trajectories across the lifespan, applying the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease framework, under the supervision of Drs. Emily Oken and Marie-France Hivert. Before joining Project Viva, she earned her PhD in Population Health Sciences at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, where her dissertation focused on the long-term effects of prenatal substance exposures, particularly prenatal alcohol exposure, on behavioral health in childhood and physical and mental health outcomes in adulthood.
At Project Viva, Dr. Shchetinina's research centers on positive health and resilience in adolescence and young adulthood. She is particularly interested in taking a whole-person approach to understanding why some individuals thrive despite early-life challenges and in identifying prenatal, social, environmental, and nutritional factors that promote healthy development, including the role of prenatal vitamin D in shaping child development and health across the life course. More broadly, her research interests include maternal and child health, life-course epidemiology, and the intergenerational determinants of health and well-being.