Pari Shah

Pari is originally from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and she has a BA from Elon University in Human Service Studies, and a MSW from Washington University in St. Louis. Her post-MSW experience includes working as a clinical social worker in various healthcare settings such as hospitals and long-term care with folks coping with chronic illness and end of life. She continues to practice therapy with individuals coping with depression, anxiety, trauma, transition, chronic illness, end of life, and grief.

Pari’s research is centered addressing health systems gaps to better improve patient care and outcomes. Pari critically examines how the healthcare workers’ wellbeing is impacted by their work. During her doctoral training, she has supported randomized controlled trials on improving healthcare workforce wellbeing, conducted secondary data workforce analyses, and led analyses for various projects related to integrated healthcare, such as studying the outcomes of mothers with babies in the NICU. Pari spends substantial time applying to internal and external grants to support her independent research, and she curated time in her doctoral program to sharpen her grant writing skills. For her dissertation, Pari is exploring the experience of moral injury amongst clinical social workers in healthcare and using those stories to develop a moral injury scale and to inform a national survey measuring the experiences of moral injury and mental health of clinical social workers in healthcare.

Overall, Pari views herself as a health systems researcher. She believes that in order to create improved and accessible healthcare, a well-supported and cared for healthcare workforce is essential. The pressures of caring for our healthcare workers need to shift from an individual responsibility to systems-level solutions.

Concentrations

• Health and Wellness

• MSW, Washington University

• LCSW