Danielle L. Steelesmith, PhD

The Steelesmith lab focuses on geographic differences in mental health services, health disparities, and suicide. Analyses often include county and society level factors and how they are related to geographical disparities in mental health. Current work explores how policies are related to suicide rates across the rural/urban spectrum.

Publications

Danielle L. Steelesmith, PhD, is a mental health services researcher and principal investigator in the Center for Suicide Prevention and Research in the Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. Her research focuses on geographic differences in mental health services and health disparities, with emphasis on community and societal factors that contribute to these differences. Dr. Steelesmith is a skilled data analyst. She has extensive experience in mental health services research, using “big data,” and merging data from multiple sources. She has published on the epidemiology of suicide in rural areas, contextual-level factors associated with county-level suicide rates and how associations vary across the rural/urban continuum. She also has an interest in deaths of despair and how these deaths vary by geography.