Holly Baker

Holly Baker is an Adjunct Professor at the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health & Human Longevity Science at the University of California San Diego. Her research focuses on social network analysis, social norms, and their impacts on reproductive health, mental health, and adolescent well-being in global contexts. She has held leadership roles as Principal Investigator and Co-Principal Investigator (Co-PI) on major grants from USAID, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and NIH.

Her work examines issues such as adolescent fertility in Niger and Honduras, gender norms in the US and India, and the role of social networks in health behaviors like contraceptive use and latrine ownership. Key projects include evaluating interventions to address child marriage in Cameroon and improving family planning uptake among adolescent girls in rural Niger.

Baker’s publications span topics like the psychosocial impacts of the pandemic on youth, spatial analysis of marital age patterns, and longitudinal studies on gender norms. Her research integrates global health, social science, and behavioral science to address systemic health challenges.