Bio

Dr. Varun Goel is a health and medical geographer specializing in the geospatial determinants of health disparities and the effectiveness of health interventions. He joined the University of South Carolina as an Assistant Professor in Geography, following his PhD in Geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a postdoctoral research position at the Carolina Population Center. Dr. Goel's overall research explores how human-environment interactions influence population health risks across diverse global settings, particularly in relation to infectious diseases, and how health interventions can be equitably implemented to mitigate those risks. His current projects include assessing the impact of safe drinking-water interventions in rural Bangladesh, examining the role of climate change and human mobility on malaria in Sub-Saharan Africa, and studying swine influenza ecology in the US. As an interdisciplinary population health scientist, Dr. Goel has contributed to several externally funded studies, designing field surveys, incorporating spatial analysis and remote sensing into study designs, and employing diverse geospatial and epidemiological methods related to geostatistics, remote sensing, causal inference, and machine learning. A key aspect of his work involves fostering long-term collaborations across the US and the Global South, and translating research findings into actionable policies through active engagement with policymakers.

Research Overview

Goel’s research explores the intricate relationships between individuals and their geographic contexts—spanning social, natural, and built environments—and how these interactions shape geospatial health disparities and influence the success of interventions aimed at reducing them. His work is centered around three key research areas:

1.  Integrating Geographic Context in Population Health Interventions Research:
   Interventions to improve population health are inextricably linked to their geographic context as their success or failure is influenced by the environmental, social, political, and economic context of the place where they are implemented. Traditional intervention impact evaluation approaches that routinely ‘control’ for contextual variations and focus on the ‘average’ impact of interventions, may fail to highlight important contextual characteristics critical for intervention success, and obfuscate important heterogeneity and externalities related to the interventions.Through interdisciplinary and international collaborations, including studies on safe drinking-water interventions in rural Bangladesh and malaria vaccine efficacy in Sub-Saharan Africa, Goel’s work reveals the importance of fine-scale variations and contextual drivers. His findings have been disseminated through several peer-reviewed journals and policy workshops.
   
   
2. Infectious Disease Ecology and Human-Environment Interactions:
   The second focal research area examines how human-environment interactions alter infectious disease ecologies, either amplifying or mitigating risks at individual and population levels. A significant portion of Goel’s research centers on malaria ecology in Sub-Saharan Africa, with a focus on the impacts of climate change, variability, and human migration on malaria risk. In addition to projects in the Global South, his current projects also include a collaborative study on influenza at the human-swine interface in the United States, utilizing a ‘one health’ approach to examine ecological factors in pandemic influenza evolution across spatial scales.
   
   
3. Geospatial Determinants of Health:
   Goel’s third focal research area involves combining large demographic and health datasets with spatial datasets to uncover racial, ethnic, and geographic disparities in health outcomes. A notable aspect of this research is the co-involvement of policy makers from study conception to dissemination. These projects include collaborations with the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services to examine disparities in COVID-19 testing and exposure in North Carolina, development of web dashboards to explain geographic variations in vaccine hesitancy across Pennsylvania, and quantifying the role of Apartheid-related segregation in perpetuating geographic and racial disparities in HIV in South Africa. 
   
   

Mentorship and Education

Beyond his research, Goel has also mentored several undergraduate and graduate students in geography, medicine, and public health on multiple research projects. He actively engages in educational initiatives, offering short courses and workshops on spatial epidemiology, health GIS, and open-source statistical programming both in the U.S. and internationally. Dr. Goel welcomes inquiries from prospective Master’s and Ph.D. students interested in applying geographic theories and analytical methods to address pressing public health challenges. While much of his current work focuses on infectious diseases in the Global South, he is open to guiding research on geospatial health issues in diverse contexts and health outcomes. Undergraduate students interested in gaining research experience in geospatial health are also encouraged to reach out.

Teaching

Fall 2024: GEOG 310: Geographies of Health: Environment, Society & Wellbeing

Representative Publications

1.     Goel, V., Chan B, Ziade M, , Yunus M, Ali MT, Khan AF, Alam N, Babu S, Kabir MM, Delamater P, Serre M, Sobsey M, Islam M, Emch M (2023). Deep tubewell use is associated with increased household microbial contamination in rural Bangladesh: Results from a prospective cohort study among households in rural Bangladesh. Environmental Pollution.

2.     Brandt*, K., Goel, V.*, Keeler, C*., Bell, G. J., Aiello, A. E., Corbie-Smith, G., Wilson, E., Fleischauer, A., Emch, M., & Boyce, R. M. (2021). SARS-CoV-2 testing in North Carolina: Racial, ethnic, and geographic disparities. Health & Place.  (* – joint first authors)

3.     Janko, M., Goel, V., & Emch, M. (2019). Extending multilevel spatial models to include spatially varying coefficients. Health & Place.

4.     Goel, V., Emch, M. (2021). Spatial Epidemiology: Challenges and Methods in COVID-19 Research. In G. J.Andrews, V. A. Crooks, J. R. Pearce, & J. P. Messina (Eds.), COVID-19 and Similar Futures: PandemicGeographies (pp. 23–29). Springer International Publishing.

5.     Bell, G. J., Goel, V., Essone, P., Dosoo, D., Adu, B., Mensah, B. A., Gyaase, S., Wiru, K., Mougeni, F., Osei, M.,Minsoko, P., Sinai, C., Niaré, K., Juliano, J. J., Hudgens, M., Ghansah, A., Kamthunzi, P., Mvalo, T., Agnandji, S. T., Emch, M. (2022). Malaria Transmission Intensity Likely Modifies RTS, S/AS01 Efficacy Due to a Rebound Effect in Ghana, Malawi, and Gabon. The Journal of Infectious Diseases,

6.     Bell, G. J., Ncayiyana, J., Sholomon, A., Goel, V., Zuma, K., & Emch, M. (2022). Race, place, and HIV: The legacies of apartheid and racist policy in South Africa. Social Science & Medicine, 296, 114755.

7.     Xu E*, Goel V*, Baguma E, Ayebare E, Hollingsworth BD, Brown-Marusiak A, Giandomenico D, Reyes R, Ntaro M, Mulogo EM, Boyce RM (2024). Evolution of spatial risk of malaria infection after a pragmatic chemoprevention program in response to severe flooding in rural western Uganda. Journal of Infectious Diseases. (* – joint first authors)