Ariel L. Beccia

Dr. Ariel L. Beccia serves as a Research Scientist in the Division of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine at Boston Children's Hospital and faculty at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health through the Strategic Training Initiative for the Prevention of Eating Disorders (STRIPED). She concurrently holds membership in Harvard's Sexual Orientation Gender Identity and Expression (SOGIE) Health Equity Research Collaborative and the LGBTQ Health Center of Excellence.

Her educational foundation includes a PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School's Clinical and Population Health Research program, followed by an NIMHD-funded postdoctoral fellowship at STRIPED. This training established her expertise in advanced quantitative methodologies for health disparities research.

Dr. Beccia's research program centers on social and structural determinants of eating disorder inequities, with specialized focus on LGBTQ+ youth populations. She integrates causal inference frameworks and econometric methods to examine mental health disparities through intersectional lenses, while leading STRIPED's Eating Disorder Public Health Surveillance Working Group to enhance CDC Youth Risk Behavior Survey monitoring of disordered eating behaviors.

Analysis of her 15 most recent publications reveals dominant methodological approaches using intersectional MAIHDA and structural determinant frameworks across three thematic clusters: reproductive health disparities (abortion access, pregnancy mental health), eating disorder epidemiology (disordered eating behaviors, supplement risks), and structural inequity measurement (cisheterosexism, racism, sexism trajectories).

Her scientific recognition includes:

• NIMHD Postdoctoral Fellowship

Dr. Beccia directs STRIPED's surveillance initiative while contributing to Harvard's SOGIE Collaborative and LGBTQ Health Center of Excellence, developing research infrastructure for structural determinant analysis and participating in national efforts to integrate equity metrics into public health surveillance systems.