Usha Sambamoorthi

Usha Sambamoorthi, PhD is an Associate Professor of Pharmacotherapy at the UNT System College of Pharmacy. She holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Madras (1981) and has dedicated her career to improving population health through health economics research. Her work focuses on reducing health disparities through analysis of large healthcare datasets such as Medicare/Medicaid claims, NHIS, and UK Biobank. Dr. Sambamoorthi is renowned for applying advanced econometric methods and machine learning techniques (Random Forest, NLP) to extract actionable insights from healthcare data.

• Research Interests: Healthcare access/outcomes, machine learning in health analytics, health policy, and disparities research
• Funding: AHRQ, NIH, VA, and private grants totaling over 9 sponsored projects since 2017
• Awards: 2018 WISH Excellence Award, multiple mentoring accolades from APHA and WVU
• Collaborations: Works with multidisciplinary teams including physicians, statisticians, and sociologists

Her recent work includes examining BMI trends during the pandemic, mental health disparities among Asian Indians, and comorbidity impacts on health behaviors. She leads efforts in linking EHR and claims data to address emerging population health challenges.