Naomi Cruz is a Ph.D. candidate in the Health Systems and Policy concentration at the Rutgers School of Public Health. Her primary research interests include mental health and health disparities with a particular focus on adolescent suicide prevention. Some of her recent and ongoing projects in this field involve assessing temporal trends in adolescents’ emergency department visits for suicidal thoughts and behaviors before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, evaluating racial/ethnic disparities in self-reported suicidal ideation and suicide attempts, analyzing suicidality risks among youth receiving specialty mental health treatment for comorbid eating disorders and depression, examining post-suicide attempt treatment trajectories and outcomes among Medicaid-enrolled adolescents, and developing a training for physicians on identifying and addressing suicide risks in individuals with autism. Naomi received her undergraduate degree in psychology and public health from Columbia University in 2021.
Naomi is a recipient of a 2024 AcademyHealth Alice S. Hersh Student Scholarship for the Annual Research Meeting.