Description of Research Expertise

Dr. Merchant is a tenured Professor of Emergency Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and has a secondary appointment in the Department of Internal Medicine, Department of Anesthesia and Critical Care, and Division of Health Policy. She is the Penn Medicine Associate Vice President/Digital Health. She is a Co-Director of the National Clinician Scholars Program at the University of Pennsylvania and the Director of the Penn Center for Digital Health. Her research is at the intersection of digital media and health. She has specifically conducted projects evaluating health behaviors and communication using digital platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, Instagram, Reddit, and Google. One of her projects involves “banking language” through the development of a unique longitudinal database of social media data merged with health record data. Much of her work also bridges new technologies in the fields of cardiovascular health, mental health, cancer care, disaster medicine, public health, and resuscitation science. Dr. Merchant has been continuously funded by the NIH since 2011 and her work has been published in journals such as NEJM, JAMA, Circulation, and Health Affairs. She is a member of the editorial board of JAMA. She is an Aspen Health Innovators Fellow and was recognized by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation as one of 10 young investigators likely to have a significant impact on the future of health and healthcare in the US. She is a member of the National Academy of Medicine.