Vincenzo Malo

Vincenzo Malo (he/they) is a public health researcher with a background in quantitative and qualitative social support research. He evaluates tobacco-control media campaigns for national and state clients like the Food and Drug Administration and the Florida Department of Health. Their work also includes surveillance of substance use behaviors and risk perceptions, evaluation of health systems and health systems providers, and implementation of equity-focused research methods to identify and respond to disparities in substance use outcomes. Vincenzo works with several large-scale datasets and is skilled in data management, analysis, and visualization in Stata and R.

In their role at RTI, Vincenzo has studied innovative methods to conduct equity-focused public health research that aims to disrupt systems of oppression. As part of the RTI Global Gender Center’s LGBTQIA+ Rising group, he led an initiative to develop guidance on inclusive research practices with LGBTQIA+ populations, conducting a review of existing methodologies and publishing his findings for other RTI researchers. They advise projects on these research methods, as well as how to improve research processes by centering projects around equity. Vincenzo serves on the PRIDE Employee Resource Group's Equity Advisement & Advancement Committee, where he helps facilitate a LGBTQIA+ Workplace Equity Training, and on the Communication Practice Area’s EDIB Working Group.

Vincenzo’s research interests also include psychosocial well-being and social determinants of health for LGBTQIA+ populations. Specifically, his previous research has focused on using strength-based approaches to identify opportunities for public health interventions aimed at improving social support and other psychosocial outcomes for adolescents living with HIV, families with young children, and orphans and separated children. They have led and co-authored three manuscripts related to this work.