RG

Rahul Goel

Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, MRC Epidemiology Unit, Indian Insitute of Technology Delhi, Texas A&M University, Shiv Nadar University, Indian Institute of Tehnology Delhi

ORCID iD 0000-0002-4189-021X
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About

I am an Associate Professor at the Transportation Research and Injury Prevention Centre (TRIP Centre) at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India (https://tripc.iitd.ac.in/) which is an interdisciplinary research program with a primary focus on mitigating the adverse health effects of transport.

I am trained as a civil engineer and transportation planner and my broad research interests lie at the intersection of transport and health. I study how travel patterns impact population health through three main pathways—air pollution, traffic injuries, and physical activity. I achieve this through a combination of observational methods as well as modelling. My aim is to develop the evidence base for policies that can help mitigate non-communicable disease and injury burden resulting from urbanisation and rapidly changing mobility patterns in low-and-middle income countries.

My research experience has been highly interdisciplinary. I did my PhD (2011-2017) at the Transportation Research and Injury Prevention Programme (TRIPP) at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. I have a broad experience in conducting field data collection to answer multiple research questions that are highly relevant to the proposed project. During my PhD I was involved in data collection of police reports of road crashes from police stations, coding of reports in a crash recording form, mapping of crash locations, and epidemiology of injuries using small-area ecological methods. I did instrumentation work to measure fine particulate matter (PM2.5) exposure in different transport modes, for which we used a portable real-time air pollution monitor with a GPS device and a humidity monitor. I have conducted on-board interviews of metro rail passengers, population-representative household interview survey of travel behaviour in Delhi, on-road interviews of vehicle drivers to estimate usage characteristics, and GPS-based speed measurements of multiple transport modes. In all these, I introduced novelty in developing sampling methods that are suited to data availability and resource constraints in Indian cities. I have also shown my ability to lead large data collection teams, while maintaining high standards of quality control in data collection.

During my post-doctoral research at the MRC Epidemiology Unit, University of Cambridge, UK (2017-2019), I worked with public health modellers, physical activity epidemiologists, as well as experts in evaluations of transport infrastructure natural experiments. I worked extensively on developing health impact models for many LMIC settings. I learned study designs and epidemiology methods used in public health that I am currently applying for road safety work in India. I have led two studies using case-control and case-crossover methods to identify risk factors of bicycle fatalities in Delhi. I have recently led an evidence gap mapping publication (forthcoming) with Campbell Collaborations to identify existing evidence from all effectiveness studies and systematic reviews related to road safety interventions.

Employment

  • Indian Institute of Technology Delhi Assistant Professor
    2022 - Present
  • Indian Institute of Technology Delhi Visiting faculty
    2021 - 2022
  • MRC Epidemiology Unit Research Associate (Post-doc)
    2017 - 2021
  • Shiv Nadar University Assistant Professor
    2015 - 2017
  • Indian Institute of Technology Delhi Research Associate
    2011 - 2014
  • Texas A&M University Research Assistant
    2008 - 2010

Education

  • Indian Insitute of Technology Delhi PhD
    2011 - 2017
  • Texas A&M University Master of Science
    2008 - 2010
  • Indian Institute of Tehnology Delhi Bachelor of Technology
    2004 - 2008

Projects & Funding

Projects & funding information is unavailable.

Publications (49)