Indrani Saran
Associate Professor of the Practice
Biography
Indrani Saran is associate professor of the practice, Behavioral Research/Biostatistics at Boston College School of Social Work. Professor Saran’s research draws on theories in behavioral economics and applies economic methods to understand how people make health decisions, particularly in the context of weak health systems. The goal is to better understand how to increase uptake of effective health technologies. Her research has focused on evaluating strategies to expand the access and use of malaria diagnosis and treatment tools in East Africa. Saran’s published work uses data from randomized controlled trials to show how people use new information to update their health beliefs and make decisions about malaria treatment. Other work has examined broader health system issues such as the financial impacts of health care expenses for aging populations in India, and the preferences and motivations of volunteer community health workers in Kenya. Professor Saran is also interested in exploring issues of research design and statistical analyses of randomized controlled trials and observational studies, drawing on approaches from biostatistics, econometrics and epidemiology.