Dr. Elahe Nezami is the director of undergraduate training in Health Promotion & Disease Prevention Studies at USC. She is also principal investigator of the pilot program, Psychosocial Predictors of Smoking Across Cultures, at USC’s Transdisciplinary Tobacco Use Research Center.
As an assistant professor of preventive medicine in the Keck School of Medicine, Dr. Nezami has focused her research on determinates of behavioral risk factors for chronic diseases – cancer and cardiovascular disease in particular. Risk factors of primary interest are tobacco use, physical activity, and nutritional practices. Her other research projects include examination of personality characteristics (hostility, anger, aggression) in relation to cardiovascular disease; the psychological predictors of smoking (depression, anxiety, novelty seeking); and the role of culture and acculturation in predicting behavior.