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Suzanne Bell, PhD

Suzanne Bell
  • Assistant Scientist

Departmental Affiliations

Center & Institute Affiliations

Contact Information

615 N. Wolfe Street
Room E4039
Baltimore, Maryland 21205

View Current Courses

Education

PhD, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 2018
MPH, University of California, Berkeley, 2011
BA, University of California, Los Angeles, 2007

Overview

Dr. Suzanne Bell has a PhD from the Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health with a focus in demography and a Master's in Public Health from the University of California, Berkeley. She studies patterns of contraceptive use and abortion, particularly in the context of population-based surveys. Dr. Bell leads Performance Monitoring for Action's (PMA's) abortion work and provides programmatic and technical support for PMA at large. Through this work, Dr. Bell seeks to advance understanding of the role of abortion in women’s reproductive lives through improved measurement of abortion incidence and safety in low-resource settings. Additionally, her research assesses structural factors that contribute to disparities in reproductive health behaviors and outcomes and quantifies inequities in access to and quality of contraceptive and abortion services in the United States and internationally.

Honors and Awards

2017 – Laurie Schwab Zabin Award

2017 – Edward J. Dehne Award in Population Dynamics

2015, 2016 – Endowed Fellowship in Family Planning and Reproductive Health

2015 – Bill and Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health Travel Scholarship

2015 – JHSPH Center for Global Public Health Research Scholarship

2014, 2015 – Robertson Scholarship

2010 – UC Berkeley Bixby Center for Population Health and Sustainability Practicum Fellowship

2009, 2010 – US Department of Education Foreign Language Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowship

  • Contraception
  • Abortion
  • Fertility
  • Family planning
  • Survey research
  • Measurement
  • Demography
  • Epidemiology

Select publications from last three years:

  • Bell SO, Omoluabi E, OlaOlorun F, Shankar M, Moreau C. (2020). Inequities in the incidence and safety of abortion in Nigeria. BMJ Global Health, 5 doi:e001814. doi:10.1136/ bmjgh-2019-001814.
  • Bell SO, OlaOlorun F, Shankar M, Ahmed D, Guiella G, Omoluabi E, Khanna A, Hyacinthe A, Moreau C. (2019). Measurement of Abortion Safety Using Community-Based Surveys: Findings from Three Countries. PLoS ONE 14(11): e0223146. doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0223146.
  • Bell S, Bishai D (2019). Can a list experiment improve validity of abortion measurement? Studies in Family Planning. https://doi.org/10.1111/sifp.12082.
  • Bell S, Zimmerman L, Choi Y, Hindin M (2018). Legal but Limited? Abortion Service Availability and Readiness Assessment in Nepal. Health Policy and Planning. Jan 1;33(1):99-106.
  • Bell S, Bishai D (2017). Unmet need and sex: Investigating the role of coital frequency in fertility control. Studies in Family Planning, Mar;48(1):39-53. doi: 10.1111/sifp.12012. Epub 2017 Feb 1.

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