Cynthia Chude is pursuing her PhD in Health Care Management and Economics at The Wharton School. Her research sits at the intersection of clinical medicine and health economics, with a focus on the surgical management of chronic diseases, health care disparities, and outcomes evaluation.
Her current work examines the causal impact of major lower-extremity amputation on employment outcomes among patients with chronic limb-threatening ischemia (CLTI), using a reduced-form instrumental variable approach. She also investigates racial, socioeconomic, and geographic disparities in time to limb-saving procedures and amputation risk through logistic regression and mediation modeling. The motivation for this work is rooted in understanding how social determinants, reimbursement structures, and institutional factors shape procedural decision-making and long-term outcomes. More broadly, her research aims to inform health policy and clinical practice at the intersection of economic incentives, access to care, and surgical quality.
At Penn LDI, Chude is eager to collaborate with interdisciplinary scholars to advance evidence-based strategies that reduce disparities and improve outcomes for high-risk surgical populations.
