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Milken Institute School of Public Health

 

Sarah Baird

Sarah Baird

Sarah Baird

M.S., Ph.D.

Professor & Vice Chair

Full-time Faculty

School: Milken Institute School of Public Health

Department: Global Health

Contact:

Email: Sarah Baird
950 New Hampshire Avenue, Office: 409 - Floor 4 Washington DC 20052

Sarah Baird is a Professor of Global Health and Economics in the Department of Global Health. She is also the Vice Chair of the Department of Global Health.  Dr. Baird is also a Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for Global Development, and an Affiliated Faculty at The Jacobs Institute of Women's Health and  The Institute for International Economic Policy (IIEP) at the Elliot School of International Affairs.

Dr. Baird is a development economist whose research focuses on the microeconomics of health and education in low- and middle-income countries with an emphasis on gender and youth. She is currently co-chair of the 2024 Lancet Commission on Adolescent Health and Wellbeing (https://adolescentsourfuture.com/2024-lancet-commission/). Her work has been published in leading academic journals including the Quarterly Journal of Economics and The Lancet, and has been featured in media outlets such as The New York Times and The Economist. Baird’s current work investigates different policy approaches to improve outcomes for adolescents ranging from cash transfers, to Group Interpersonal Psychotherapy, to social norms change. She received her PhD from the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at UC Berkeley in 2007.

Global Health

Program Evaluation

Adolescent Health and Wellbeing

RCTs

Doctor of Philosophy (Agricultural and Resource Economics), University of California, Berkeley, 2007

Master of Science (Agricultural and Resource Economics), University of California, Berkeley, 2002

Bachelor of Arts (Economics, Environmental Science, Politics), Claremont McKenna College, 2001

PubH 6418: GH Culminating Experience I

PubH 6419: GH Culminating Experience II

Dr. Baird is a peer reviewer for numerous journals and funding calls.

Dr. Baird’s research interests are largely contained within the intersection of health, poverty and education at a micro level. She utilizes quantitative research methods to investigate the causal effects of programs and policies on health and education outcomes, with a particular focus on gender and youth. She is currently co-chair on the 2024 Lancet Commission on Adolescent Health and Wellbeing (https://adolescentsourfuture.com/2024-lancet-commission/). She is the quantitative lead for the Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence (GAGE) program (https://www.gage.odi.org/), a study that is longitudinally following girls and boys in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Jordan and Rwanda to understand what works to improve the lives of adolescents. She is also the the PI on the the Connect project (https://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/library/connect-increasing-use-pospartum-family-planning-first-time-parents), which aims to increase pospartum family Planning by first-time parents in Bangladesh and Tanzania. She is a co-investigator on the Women's Health and Wellbeing Exemplar team (exemplars.health/topics/womens-health-and-wellbeing). She also has ongoing randomized impact evaluations in  Kenya (school based deworming), and Uganda (Group Interpersonal Psychotherapy + cash transfers).

(Selected Publications)

Journal Articles

  1. Baird, S., McIntosh, C, Özler, B, and Pape, U. (2024) “Asset Transfers and Anti-Poverty Programs Experimental Evidence from Tanzania.” Journal of Development Economics.  166. 
  2. Baird, S., Ezeh, A., Azzopardi, P., Choonara, S., Kleinert, S., Sawyer, S., Patton, G., & Viner, R. (2022). “Realising transformative change in adolescent health and wellbeing: a second Lancet Commission.” Lancet (London, England), 400(10352), 545–547. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(22)01529-X
  3. Oakley, E., Abuhamad, S., Seager, J., Avuwadah, B., Hamory, J., Jones, N., Malachowska, A., Yadete, W., Hamad, B.A., Baird, S. (2022). “COVID-19 and the gendered impacts on adolescent wellbeing: Evidence from a cross-sectional study of locally adapted measures in Ethiopia, Palestine and Jordan.” eClinical Medicine 52, 101586. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eclinm.2022.101586
  4. Seager, J., Asaduzzaman, T.M, Baird, S., Sabarwal, S., and Tauseef, S. (2022). “Gender, Growth Mindset, and Covid-19: A Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial in Bangladesh.” Review of Economic Analysis. 14(2), 183-219. https://openjournals.uwaterloo.ca/index.php/rofea/article/view/4963
  5. Baird, S., Jones, N., Malhotra, A., Maureen, M., Seager, J., Alheiwidi, S., Emirie, G., Sultan, M., Faiz Rashid, S. (2022) “Intersecting disadvantages for married adolescents: life after marriage pre- and post-COVID-19 in contexts of displacement.” Journal of Adolescent Health, Vol. 70 (3), pp. S86-S96. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2021.12.001
  6. Baird, S., Panlilio, R., Seager, J., Smith, S., and Wydick, B. (2022). “Identifying Psychological Trauma among Syrian Refugee Children for Early Intervention: Analyzing Digitized Drawings using Machine Learning.” Journal of Development Economics, Vol. 156, 102822.
  7. Brauner-Otto, S., Baird, S., Ghimire, D. (2022). “Women’s Employment and Children’s Education: Longitudinal evidence from Nepal.” Social Science Research, Vol. 103, 102669.
  8. Kramon, E., Hamory, J., Baird, S. and Miguel, E. (2022). “Deepening or Diminishing Ethnic Divides? The Impact of Urban Migration in Kenya.” American Journal of Political Science, 66: 365-384 https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12590
  9. Hamory, J., Miguel, E., Walker, M, Kremer, M., and Baird, S. (2021) “Twenty Year Economic Impacts of Deworming.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Vol 118 (14) DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2023185118.
  10. Baird, S., Özler, B., Dell'Aira, C., and Us Salam, D. (2020). "Using Group Interpersonal Psychotherapy to Improve the Well-Being of Adolescent Girls." Journal of Development Economics, Registered Report Phase 1.
  11. Baird, S., Hamory Hicks, J., Ozier, O. (2020). “Randomized control trial as social observatory: A case study.” World Development. Vol. 127, 104787.
  12. Baird, S., McIntosh, C., and Özler, B. (2019) “When the Money Runs Out: Do Cash Transfers Have Sustained Effects?” Journal of Development Economics, Vol. 140, pp. 169-185.
  13. Baird, S., Bhutta, Z., Abu Hamad, B., Hamory Hicks, J., Jones, N., Muz, J. (2019) “Do Restrictive Gender Attitudes and Norms Influence Physical and Mental Health during Very Young Adolescence? Evidence from Bangladesh and Ethiopia.” SSM-Population Health. Vol. 9, 100480.
  14. Brauner-Otto, S., Baird, S., Ghimire, D. (2019). “Maternal employment and child health in Nepal: The importance of job type and timing across the child’s first five years.” Social Science and Medicine, Vol. 224, pp. 94-105.
  15. Baird, S., McKenzie, D., and Özler, B. (2018). “The Effects of Cash Transfers on Adult Labor Market Outcomes.” IZA Journal of Migration and Development, Vol. 8 (1), pp. 1-20.
  16. Baird, S., Bohren, A., McIntosh, C., and Özler, B. (2018). “Optimal Design of Experiments in the Presence of Interference.” Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 100 (5), pp. 844-860.
  17. Baird, S., Hamory-Hicks, J., Kremer, M., and Miguel, E. (2016) “Worms at Work: Long Run Impacts of a Child Health Investment.” Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 131 (4), pp. 1637-1680.
  18. Ahuja, A., Baird, S., Hamory Hicks, J., Kremer, M., Miguel, E., and Powers, S. (2015), “When Should Governments Subsidize Health? The Case of Mass Deworming,” World Bank Economic Review, Vol. 29 (suppl 1), pp. S9-S24.
  19. Baird, S., Gong, E., McIntosh, C. and Özler, B. (2014), “The heterogeneous effects of HIV testing,” Journal of Health Economics, Vol. 37, pp. 98-112.
  20. Baird, S., Ferreira, F., Özler, B., and Woolcock, M. (2014), “Conditional, Unconditional and Everything in Between: A Systematic Review of the Effects of Cash Transfer Programs on Schooling Outcomes,” Journal of Development Effectiveness, Vol. 6(1), pp. 1-43.
  21. Baird, S., McIntosh, C. and Özler, B. (2013), “The Regressive Demands of Demand Driven Development,” Journal of Public Economics, Vol. 106, pp. 370-403.
  22. Baird, S., de Hoop, J. and Özler, B. (2013) “Income Shocks and Adolescent Mental Health,” Journal of Human Resources, Vol. 48(2), pp. 370-403.
  23. Baird, S. and Özler, B. (2012), “Examining the Reliability of Self-Reported Data on School Participation,” Journal of Development Economics, Vol. 98(1), pp. 89-93.
  24. Baird, S., Garfein, R., McIntosh, C., and Özler, B. (2012), “Effect of a cash transfer programme for schooling on prevalence of HIV and herpes simplex type 2 in Malawi: a cluster randomised trial,” The Lancet, Vol. 379(9823), pp. 1320-1329.
  25. Baird, S., McIntosh, C., and Özler, B. (2011), “Cash or Condition: Evidence from a Randomized Cash Transfer Program,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 126(4), pp. 1709-1753.
  26. Baird, S., Friedman, J. and Schady, N. (2011), “Aggregate Income Shocks and Infant Mortality in the Developing World,” Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 93(3), pp. 847-856.