Dr. Debarati Majumdar Narayan (Mimi) is an Officer with the Health Impact Project, a collaboration of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The Pew Charitable Trusts, that encourages state, local, and national organizations to consider health in decisions across sectors, such as housing, and transportation. Dr. Narayan leads research efforts and provides strategic guidance to community-based initiatives designed to equitably improve health outcomes. Currently she is leading the work to partner with national organizations that can support the scale and spread of promising built environment and precarious employment policies and practices that the Project's current grantee cohort is advancing in their own communities, using a Health in All Policies approach, to promote health equity in four US regions hardest hit by COVID19. Other efforts Dr. Narayan has led and guided at the Project include an initiative designed to improve communities’ preparedness and resiliency in the face of climate change related health impacts, an indigenous health and wellness evaluation framework, and the development of a resource toolkit that supports decision-makers in considering health and equity in sectors outside of public health.
Before joining Pew, Dr. Narayan served as the founder and director of Catalyze Research and Consulting, an organization providing strategic services to support healthy communities. Her efforts were focused on serving the needs of marginalized communities facing historically rooted health inequities, particularly resulting from built environment conditions. The positive impact on communities resulting from her work has been featured in national and international publications and presentations.
Previously, Dr. Narayan was adjunct faculty at Arizona State University and conducted extensive, community-based, participatory research on the built environment and health, with an intentional focus on promoting health equity. Dr. Narayan holds a degree in architectural engineering, interior architecture, and received her doctorate in Environmental Design and Planning, specializing in environment-behavior studies.