Faculty Distinction Fund Awardee

David E. Frisvold, PhD

Dr. Frisvold is an Assistant Professor at Emory College in the Department of Economics. He is a promising young scholar who earned his doctorate in economics from Vanderbilt University in 2006 specializing in health economics. As a graduate student he won several awards of distinction from his department and university. Upon graduation, he won a prestigious Robert Wood Johnson fellowship to pursue health policy research at the University of Michigan.

Dr. Frisvold's research interests focus on how public policies affect health and educational outcomes. While researching one of his papers, "Expanded Exposure: Can Increasing the Daily Duration of Head Start Reduce Childhood Obesity?," he was able to use an administrative dataset on Head Start participants to track the weight of those children participating in the half-day and full-day components of the program over the course of a year. He found that participating in the full-day program resulted in a 25% decrease in the incidence of obesity. His study will undoubtedly inform the policy discussion on the full benefits of expanding the Head Start program. He and his colleagues at Vanderbilt have conducted several other studies examining the health impacts of Head Start on children who participated in the program.

Despite having just completed his doctorate in 2006, Dr. Frisvold has published extensively and has several active grants.

For more information, contact:
David E. Frisvold, PhD
Assistant Professor
Emory College
david.frisvold@emory.edu