Rushina Cholera

Rushina Cholera, MD, PhD is a pediatrician and epidemiologist in the Division of General Pediatrics with appointments at the Duke Margolis Center for Health Policy and the Duke Department of Population Health Sciences. Her research and health policy work focus on understanding unmet social needs and identifying optimal approaches for social and health care sector integration to promote health and health equity for children and families. Dr. Cholera aims to design and implement cross-sector, community-engaged, and scalable interventions to improve child health disparities across the clinical practice and health policy levels. She draws on interdisciplinary mixed-methods research approaches leveraging her expertise in epidemiology, community-based participatory research, and implementation science.

Dr. Cholera completed both her MD and PhD in Epidemiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She completed her pediatrics residency at UNC Chapel Hill and was then a National Clinician Scholar at Duke University. She is currently the Director of Research and Evaluation for the NC Integrated Care for Kids model, a CMS-funded pilot demonstration project to develop and implement a locally integrated health care service delivery and payment model for Medicaid/CHIP insured children in NC. She also directs the health behaviors and needs research pillar within the Duke Children’s Health & Discovery Initiative.