Bruna Rubbo joined the University of Bristol as a Research Fellow funded by the Centre for Pesticide Suicide Prevention at the University of Edinburgh. She obtained a PhD in Clinical Epidemiology at the University of Southampton in 2020, where she continued to work as a research fellow before relocating to the University of Southern California for a postdoctoral scholarship investigating the effects of pesticide exposure on weight loss in obese adolescents.
Bruna is now working on multiple projects focused on the effects of changes in pesticide regulation and national bans on the overall and pesticide suicide rates in low- and middle-income countries. She was particularly interested in this line of research as “having previously conducted research that had potential clinical applications, this position provides me the unique opportunity to contribute to epidemiological studies that, in addition to clinical impact, also have direct policy implications, and these could lead to the prevention of numerous suicides worldwide.”