Kasim Ortiz, Ph.D., M.S.

Kasim Ortiz, Ph.D., M.S., is an assistant professor in the Department of Health Management and Policy. Ortiz joined the Dornsife School of Public Health as part of the Drexel FIRST (Faculty Institutional Recruitment for Sustainable Transformation) program.

Ortiz earned his PhD from the University of New Mexico in the Department of Sociology and Criminology, where he was a National Institute of Aging (NIA) Dissertation Fellow. He specializes in sexual and gender minority health disparities, with a focus on the role of racial stratification in shaping substance use behaviors and deploys primarily quantitative research methods.

Ortiz has authored 30 peer-reviewed journal articles. His NIA-supported (R36) dissertation, “The Gayborhood Was Never Here For Some of Us! Health Consequences of Racialized Exclusion among Sexual Minorities across the Lifecourse” uses rigorous quantitative analytic strategies to understand how racial stratification, manifested in gayborhoods across the life course, shapes racial/ethnic variations in cigarette smoking among sexual minorities. His active and prospective research program employs critical race theory, intersectionality, racial capitalism, and life course frameworks (i.e., Health Equity Promotion Model) grounding unique examinations of how structural racism shapes the health of vulnerable populations.