Dr. Ishu Kataria is a Senior Public Health Researcher with RTI’s Center for Noncommunicable Diseases. She works on noncommunicable disease (NCD) prevention and control both in India as well as globally. She has experience in conceptualizing and developing interventions, capacity building initiatives, and designing and implementing programs on NCDs, including cancer prevention, adolescent NCDs, and behavior change communication.
At RTI, Dr. Kataria focuses on cancer prevention and control and NCDs among young people. She is currently leading a Global Alliance for Chronic Diseases-funded project on improving access to affordable cancer care in India. She has also co-led a mixed methods study for the U.S. National Institutes of Health to describe the prevalence and correlates of cancer-related perceived stigma and investigated cancer-and diabetes-related knowledge and psychosocial barriers to diagnosis and treatment, including fear, stigma, anxiety, and depression, among cancer and diabetes patients and caregivers in India. She has also contributed to the development of a Digital Communication Toolkit to maximize digital health communication around cancer in India.
Dr. Kataria serves as a commissioner for the Lancet Commission on Women and Cancer. She is also the NCD focal point for the UN Major Group for Children and Youth, co-chair of Youth Coalition on NCDs, and is the steering group member for the recently launched NCD Labs initiative for the World Health Organization on NCDs and the next generation.
Prior to joining RTI, Dr. Kataria worked with the All India Institute of Medical Sciences on their community outreach program using the positive deviance approach, and with the Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India, on their Integrated Child Development Services strategy.
