Tiago Jesus, PhD, OTD, OTR/L
Assistant Professor (tenure track)
Division of Occupational Therapy
Occupational Therapy Doctorate Program
406D Atwell Hall
453 W. 10th Ave.
Columbus, OH 43210
Areas of interest
Health Systems & Services Research and both global and local (e.g., rural) disability & rehabilitation disparities. Specific interests include:
- Geographic disparities in the access and quality of care, including in rural areas.
- Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and spatiotemporal analyses.
- Human Resources planning and development for underserviced locations.
- Stakeholder engagement and community-based codesign and service-delivery.
- Patient experience and user engagement in service development / quality improvement.
Overview
I'm an Occupational Therapist and Rehabilitation Services Researcher that aims to identify and tackle rehabilitation access and quality disparities. My scholarship focuses on the geographically underserved, such as disabled persons living in rural and/or low-resource settings, domestically and elsewhere. Approaches include spatiotemporal analyses, workforce development strategies, innovative service delivery, and stakeholder-engaged & community-based approaches for knowledge translation. My scholarship also focuses on what it takes for rehabilitation services to be person-centered, and how to use the patient’s voice (patient experience feedback) for quality improvement.
My research, training and improvement activities have been funded by federal agencies, leading rehabilitation hospitals, or through the Veterans Administration, among others. I was awarded with a distinguished Research Fellowship from the National Institutes of Disability, Independent Living and Rehabilitation Research for mapping rural disparities in postacute therapy utilization. I am also funded by the NIH through the Ohio State’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute on a community-based codesign of home/community-based rehabilitation services in rural Appalachia. I'm also the project lead of World Federation of Occupational Therapists, developing and implementing the first global strategy for strengthening the Occupational Therapy profession.
I rapidly achieved over 70 international peer-reviewed publications, often as first or senior author, in major rehabilitation and public health journals, including in The Lancet, and his research had several recognitions (author interviews, featured articles). I have been a federal Grant Reviewer, Associate Editor and Lead Guest Editor for major journals in my field.
With a global impact, I have been an invited speaker internationally and mentored the research of graduate students, practitioners, or junior faculty from >10 countries, from high- to low-income. I'm passioned about building the capacity of mentees to become agents of change in their own settings, communities, or countries.
Awards and honors
- 2024 Lead Guest Editor. Int J Health Plann and Manage (Wiley), UK.
- 2023 Distinguished Research Fellowship: US National Institute of Disability Independent Living and Rehabilitation Research.
- 2021-current, Association Editor, Section Human Resources for Health, Int J Health Plann and Manage (Wiley), UK.
- 2020 Guest Editor, Special Issue: “Global Rehabilitation Workforce, Policy, and Innovation”, Int J Environ Res Public Health (MDPI), Switzerland
- 2019, Elite Reviewer Award, Arch Phys Med Rehabil; contribute of “extraordinary magnitude and quality”, attributed to the top 2% reviewers of the journal.
Education
- 2021-2023, Post-Doctoral Fellowship (PDF), Health Services & Outcomes Research, Institute for Public Health and Medicine, Northwestern University, USA
- 2020-2021, Post-Professional Occupational Therapy Doctorate (PP-OTD), Sargent College, Boston University, USA
- 2009-2013, PhD, Health Psychology, Medical School, Universidad Miguel Hernández, Spain
- 2002-2006, Entry-Level, 4-year Occupational Therapy degree, School of Health, Oporto Polytechnic Institute