Sarah Hatcher is a Research Epidemiologist known for her collaboration and consensus-building skills. Through participating in and leading multidisciplinary teams in multiple sectors, Dr. Hatcher has gained experience in study design, questionnaire development, epidemiologic data management and analysis, stakeholder engagement, and project management. Her diverse interests include environmental health, occupational health, emerging infectious disease, zoonotic disease, environmental justice, health equity, tribal health, field epidemiology, antimicrobial resistance, and One Health. In addition, Dr. Hatcher is experienced in COVID-19 emergency response and case surveillance, epidemiologic study design, applied epidemiology methods including surveillance system evaluation and outbreak investigation, questionnaire development, epidemiologic data management and analysis, and literature review. She also has experience working in laboratory settings domestically and internationally.
Currently, Dr. Hatcher is a part of RECOVER, an initiative by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that seeks to understand, prevent, and treat post-acute sequelae of COVID-19, including “Long COVID”. She contributes to a variety of other projects, including the NIH’s HEALing Communities Study; COVID-19 Herd Immunity and Vaccine Effectiveness: Literature Review and Manuscript Development; Research to End the HIV Epidemic in Indian Country; and Environmental Health Technical Assistance for the Great Lakes Inter-Tribal Epidemiology Center.
Her doctoral research focused on the environmental and occupational health impacts of industrial hog operations, including of livestock-associated and antimicrobial resistant Staphylococcus aureus, in partnership with community organizations in Eastern North Carolina. Before joining RTI, Dr. Hatcher worked for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer assigned to the Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board’s Northwest Tribal Epidemiology Center during 2016-2018. In this position, she worked with Tribal, local, state, and federal partners to document disparate health outcomes among American Indian and Alaska Native persons, including in maternal substance use, neonatal abstinence syndrome, and hepatitis C virus-related mortality. Later, as an Epidemiologist at the CDC National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, she led worksite Health Hazard Evaluations at the request of employees, employers, unions, and local, state, or federal public health partners. She also participated in NIOSH’s AI/AN Occupational Health Initiative and the CDC’s COVID-19 response for Tribal Nations.
Dr. Hatcher’s notable publications include Trends in indicators of injection drug use, Indian Health Service, 2010-2014: A study of health care encounter data; COVID-19 among American Indian and Alaska Native persons in 23 states, January 31–July 3, 2020; Hepatitis C-related mortality among American Indian and Alaska Native Persons in the Northwestern United States, 2006–2012; The prevalence of antibiotic-resistant Staphylococcus aureus nasal carriage among industrial hog operation workers, community residents, and children living in their households: North Carolina, USA; and Water quality and antibiotic resistance at beaches of the Galápagos Islands.
She is an Associate Member of the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists.
