Tanishta Rajesh is a doctoral student who has been affiliated with CHESS since 2023. She is pursuing her doctoral research within the Drivers of Inequalities Among Families Involved with Child Welfare Services (DRIVERS) project.
Q: What is your academic background, and and what motivated your interest in health inequalities?
My academic background is originally in dentistry. During my training and early clinical experience, I became increasingly interested in the broader societal factors that shape health and well-being. While dentistry often focuses on treating individual patients, it also became clear to me that many health outcomes are influenced by social conditions, such as family environments, socioeconomic circumstances, and access to support systems.
This interest led me to pursue a Master’s degree in Public Health at Stockholm University, where I focused on societal perspectives on health. During my master’s studies, I was introduced to the field of child welfare research. I became particularly interested in how family circumstances and social systems interact to influence the lives of children and parents. This sparked my interest in pursuing doctoral research, where I could explore these issues in greater depth using population-based data and a public health perspective.
Q: Your doctoral work focuses on familial factors that contribute to child placements in out-of-home care (OHC), and subsequent health and social outcomes among parents. Why is this an important topic of study for health inequalities research?
Out-of-home care placements often occur in families experiencing multiple forms of disadvantage, such as socioeconomic hardship, mental health challenges, and other social stressors. These circumstances are closely linked to broader patterns of health and social inequalities. While a large body of research has focused on outcomes for children placed in care, much less attention has been given to the biological parents involved in the process.
From a public health perspective, it is important to understand both the factors that lead to child welfare involvement and the consequences it may have for families. The removal of a child from the home can be a highly stressful and stigmatizing experience, and it may have implications for parents’ mental health, social circumstances, and overall well-being. By studying these health and social outcomes, my research aims to contribute to a better understanding of how interactions between family circumstances and social institutions can shape longer-term inequalities in health and well-being.
Q: You are also affiliated with the International Max Planck Research School for Population, Health and Data Science (IMPRS-PHDS). How has this affiliation contributed to your doctoral work?
Being affiliated with the International Max Planck Research School for Population, Health and Data Science (IMPRS-PHDS) has provided an enriching interdisciplinary environment for my doctoral research. The program brings together researchers from a range of disciplines, including demography, epidemiology, sociology, and data science, which encourages interdisciplinary thinking and collaboration.
Through this affiliation, I have had access to advanced methodological training, workshops, and an international research network. These opportunities have been particularly valuable for developing my skills in working with large-scale population data and for situating my research within broader international discussions on population health, social inequality, and family dynamics.
Q: What research topics would you like to pursue in the near future?
In the future, I would like to continue studying involvement in child welfare systems, with a focus on identifying opportunities to intervene and break cycles of disadvantage. Using Sweden’s population-based administrative registers, I am particularly interested in applying advanced quantitative and causal inference methods to better understand the pathways that lead families into contact with the system and the longer-term health and social outcomes associated with that involvement.