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Natalico Serrano

Primary faculty

Natalicio Serrano

Assistant Professor

MPH, PhD

Additional info:

Natalicio H. Serrano studies how environments, policies, and systems shape opportunities for physical activity and chronic disease prevention. His work focuses on creating equitable and sustainable strategies that support active living, particularly in communities affected by racial and economic segregation, neighborhood development, gentrification, and displacement.

Serrano uses a systems approach to examine how sectors such as transportation, housing, planning and public health interact to influence health behaviors and health equity. His research includes work on pedestrian-oriented zoning, community development, rural physical activity, neighborhood revitalization and anti-displacement strategies for healthy community design. Across these areas, he is interested in how built environment and policy changes can promote health without deepening existing inequities.

Before joining Bursky Public Health, Serrano was a faculty member in health behavior at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. He earned his PhD in public health sciences from Washington University in St. Louis, where his dissertation examined environment and policy strategies to promote physical activity in disadvantaged populations. His work has appeared in journals including Preventive Medicine, Journal of Urban Health, Preventing Chronic Disease, BMC Public Health, and the American Journal of Health Promotion.

Areas of focus:

  • Healthy living promotion 
  • Community engaged and participatory methods
  • Place and health
  • Neighborhood development, gentrification, and displacement
  • Health equity and policy

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