Click here for more information on The Politics of Well-Being, a full year of programming in collaboration with the School of Social Policy & Practice.


This event takes a deep dive into health as a cornerstone of well-being. From mental health to public health systems, the panel will explore how health policy reflects our political priorities and ethical commitments. With interdisciplinary voices from social work, public health, and policy, this conversation will assess the challenges and innovations shaping health equity today.

With Tamara Cadet, Jacqueline Corcoran, Meredith Doherty, Malitta Engstrom & Jennifer Prah

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Speaker Biographies:

Tamara Cadet brings more than 25 years of practice experience in many capacities and settings to her research and teaching. Dr. Cadet has worked in the fields of substance use, adoption, mental health, health care, schools, and oncology with children, adults, families, and older adults, as both a social worker and as a community organizer. As part of her doctoral training at Simmons College (now Simmons University) School of Social Work, she learned to view her clinical experiences through a scientific lens and developed an interest in conducting qualitative and quantitative research. Her overall research focus is to advance efforts to develop health promotion interventions with underserved and underrepresented populations and communities, and to translate research to practice. Her current work focuses on health disparities of older people, particularly around cancer screening and cancer care. Her work is at the intersection of health and social work, spanning the areas of evidence-based health promotion interventions, facilitators, and barriers to reducing disparities in preventative health behaviors, and health care service utilization among vulnerable populations. Dr. Cadet has received funding or research support from the National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities, National Cancer Institute, National Institute on Aging and the Heath Resources Services Administration.

Her work has a continuing focus on issues of health among the under-resourced, underserved, and underrepresented which has earned her a place as a leading scholar in the arena of social work and public health. As such, she was appointed in 2018 to the “Integrating Social Care into Heath Care Delivery System” committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine Committee. She is currently co-chairing the Council on Social Work Education’s Health Curricular Guide. Dr. Cadet received her BA from Tufts University and her MSW and MPH from Boston University. In sum, she consistently aims to ensure that she is a change agent at the clinical, macro, policy, and organizational levels using her national reputation and her excellence in teaching to increase the quality of life with underserved and underrepresented populations. brings more than 25 years of practice experience in many capacities and settings to her research and teaching. Dr. Cadet has worked in the fields of substance use, adoption, mental health, health care, schools, and oncology with children, adults, families, and older adults, as both a social worker and as a community organizer. As part of her doctoral training at Simmons College (now Simmons University) School of Social Work, she learned to view her clinical experiences through a scientific lens and developed an interest in conducting qualitative and quantitative research. Her overall research focus is to advance efforts to develop health promotion interventions with underserved and underrepresented populations and communities, and to translate research to practice. Her current work focuses on health disparities of older people, particularly around cancer screening and cancer care. Her work is at the intersection of health and social work, spanning the areas of evidence-based health promotion interventions, facilitators, and barriers to reducing disparities in preventative health behaviors, and health care service utilization among vulnerable populations. Dr. Cadet has received funding or research support from the National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities, National Cancer Institute, National Institute on Aging and the Heath Resources Services Administration.

Her work has a continuing focus on issues of health among the under-resourced, underserved, and underrepresented which has earned her a place as a leading scholar in the arena of social work and public health. As such, she was appointed in 2018 to the “Integrating Social Care into Heath Care Delivery System” committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine Committee. She is currently co-chairing the Council on Social Work Education’s Health Curricular Guide. Dr. Cadet received her BA from Tufts University and her MSW and MPH from Boston University. In sum, she consistently aims to ensure that she is a change agent at the clinical, macro, policy, and organizational levels using her national reputation and her excellence in teaching to increase the quality of life with underserved and underrepresented populations.

Jacqueline Corcoran has been a Masters level social worker for over 25 years and has enjoyed 20 years of productive academic scholarship, starting out at the University of Texas at Arlington (4 years), then Virginia Commonwealth University (17 years), and now the University of Pennsylvania. In that time, Dr. Corcoran has written 18 books and over 100 journal articles and book chapters. She was the first person in social work to publish a book on evidence-based practice, Evidence-Based Social Work Practice with Families, which she wrote in 2000 as an assistant professor.

Dr. Corcoran’s career has been devoted to the synthesis of clinical social work knowledge through systematic reviews, meta-analysis, and meta-synthesis. With Littell and Pillai, she published the first book in social work on systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Another area of clinical scholarship is strengths-based models, including solution-focused therapy, motivational interviewing, strengths-based assessment, and ways to make existing models more strengths-based. Dr. Corcoran is committed to continuing the compilation of knowledge to further the evidence basis of social work with the mission of bringing relevant services to oppressed and vulnerable people.

Meredith Doherty conducts mixed-method, community-engaged research to understand the relationship between economic security and health. She examines the process through which medical financial hardship accelerates existing racial and ethnic health disparities. Dr. Doherty draws upon her clinical experience as a palliative care social worker in safety-net community hospitals to develop, implement, and evaluate healthcare-based social needs interventions that target downstream social determinants of health in medically underserved populations. As an implementation scientist, she seeks to understand the role of community and organizational leaders in the delivery of evidence-based strategies to promote healthcare access, address health-related social needs, and reduce cancer health disparities.

Dr. Doherty received her MSW from the Silver School of Social Work at New York University, her PhD in Social Welfare from the CUNY Graduate Center, and was Co-Chief Research Fellow in Psycho-Oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Dr. Doherty is a Senior Fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics and faculty at both the Center for Guaranteed Income Research and the Penn Center for Cancer Care Innovation. She is lead investigator of the Guaranteed Income and Financial Treatment Trial (G.I.F.T.T.), the first randomized control trial of guaranteed income in the U.S. to focus on alleviating financial hardship in families facing cancer. At SP2, Dr. Doherty teaches courses in health policy and social work/nonprofit leadership.

Malitta Engstrom is an Associate Professor in the School of Social Policy & Practice. With the aims of advancing understanding and services, her research focuses on substance use and intersections with criminal justice involvement, victimization, HIV, and mental health, particularly in relation to women across the life course and families; informing, developing, and testing interventions to address these intersecting concerns; and enhancing the value of scientific findings for use in practice. Dr. Engstrom’s research has been funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the John A. Hartford Foundation, the Penn Center for AIDS Research, and other sources. Her research on childhood sexual abuse and HIV risk behaviors among women in methadone treatment was recognized by the Society for Social Work and Research in 2017 (Engstrom, Winham, & Gilbert, 2016, SSWR Excellence in Research Honorable Mention).

Dr. Engstrom has taught social work practice courses for over 15 years, including courses that focus on foundation practice, substance use practice, and practice with families experiencing physical and mental health concerns. She received the Excellence in Teaching Award for Standing Faculty in the School of Social Policy & Practice in 2014 and 2015. Dr. Engstrom has mentored many doctoral students who have conducted innovative research related to substance use, criminal justice system involvement, trauma, mental health, and HIV. Her teaching and scholarship are informed by numerous years of practice experience with individuals, couples, families, and groups and by her experience as a clinical supervisor and field instructor.

Jennifer J. Prah is a leading global scholar of domestic and global health policy and public health.  She conducts theoretical and empirical studies of health equity to address global and national health inequities, especially among women and children. Professor Prah founded and directs the Health Equity and Policy Lab (HEPL), a mixed methods lab that studies public health and health and social policy issues such as the equity and efficiency of health system access, financing, resource allocation, policy reform, and the social determinants of health. Her research is conducted internationally and nationally, including work in Germany, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Malawi, Malaysia, Morocco, South Korea, South Africa, Taiwan, the United States, and Vietnam.

Professor Prah received a bachelor’s degree from the University of California-Berkeley, master’s degrees from Oxford University, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, and Yale University, and a doctoral degree from Harvard University.  She is an elected member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a Hastings Center Fellow, a Greenwall Faculty Scholar, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a Donaghue Investigator.