Xiang Gao

Bio & Education

Personal Introduction

I enjoy exploring the beauty of nature. I love visiting national parks and beaches. On a recent trip, I visited Smoky Mountain National Park, Myrtle Beach, Fort Lauderdale, and Coca Beach! I am planning my next trip to Wilmington, NC!

Professional Profile

Dr. Xiang Gao is an Assistant Professor of Public Health Education at the University of North Carolina–Greensboro (UNC-G). Dr. Gao’s research seeks to understand how socioecological factors affect health disparity among vulnerable populations. Dr. Gao’s reach lines cover cardiovascular disease epidemiology in African Americans, driving behaviors in emerging adults, and injury and violence prevention in high school students and Asian Americans. Dr. Gao’s active research investigates the impacts of sociodemographic and health-related factors on intimate partner violence and domestic violence, firearm laws on firearm violence, and Asian Americans’ experiences with firearm violence. In addition to being an Epidemiologist and public health researcher, Dr. Gao is a pedagogue. Dr. Gao teaches Epidemiology and Public Health Data Analysis for undergraduates.

Dr. Gao also teaches Quantitative Methods for master’s and doctoral-level students. Dr. Gao serves on the Undergraduate Program Committee (UPC) in the Department of Public Health Education at UNC-G. Dr. Gao did his postdoctoral fellowship at the Columbia Center for Injury Science and Prevention (CCISP) in the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University in the City of New York. Dr. Gao got his Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) from Colorado State University and a Master of Public Health (MPH) in Epidemiology from Indiana University Bloomington. Dr. Gao advocates for inclusiveness and belongingness for those underrepresented Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) students and scholars in academia.

• Ph.D. in Health and Exercise Science, Colorado State University
• M.P.H. in Epidemiology, Indiana State University, Bloomington
• M.D. in Preventive Medicine, Fujian Medical University, Fuzhou City, China

Office Hours and Location

Office Hours

Tuesday’s
2 pm – 3 pm, In Person Meetings

Thursday
2 pm – 3 pm, Virtual Meetings

Location

437 E Coleman Building

Courses Taught

• HEA 315 Epidemiology
• HEA 325 Public Health Data Analysis
• HEA 604/704 Quantitative Methods

Research

• Asian American
• Injury
• Violence
• Firearms

Current Projects

• Transforming Racialized Data to Actionable Deliverables: Multi-Approaches to Advancing Asian American Youth Health and Well-Being (Asian American youth face rising rates of psychological distress, economic hardship, and racialized violence, yet remain largely invisible in public health data and underserved by existing systems. This project will integrate disaggregated causal analyses with community-partnered and youth-led methods—such as photovoice and geographic information system (GIS) mapping—to examine how structural exposures and exclusionary policies affect youth health, safety, and development. Findings will produce actionable evidence and practical tools to strengthen community-based organizations’ capacity, inform system-level change, and improve inclusion and responsiveness for historically excluded youth populations.
• Resilient Pathways: Trauma-Informed Support Prog for Youth with ACEs (The overarching goal of this project is to collaboratively develop, implement, and evaluate Resilient Pathways using an epidemiologically informed, multi-method approach. This will be accomplished by actively soliciting input from program beneficiaries in ways that guide its design and delivery. This approach will ensure accurate assessment of program effectiveness, identify population needs, and explore mechanisms for sustained impact.) 
• Gun laws and violence on affecting racialized health outcomes (While gun laws widely impact on gun practice behaviors, there is limited research disaggregating gun laws and explore how it influences racialized/marginalized vulnerable population health outcomes. This project is disaggregating gun laws and link it to different types of risky behaviors and identify modifiable socioeconomic factors buffer such risk behaviors.)

Selected Publications

•  Gao, X., Horbal, S. R., Burford, K. G., & Bidulescu, A. (2025). Alcohol use mediates the association between sexual dating violence victimization and attempted suicide among US high school students. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 107663. 
•  Siddiqui, S. M., & Gao, X. (2024). Housing instability and concern about firearm victimization among Asian Americans. Injury Prevention
• Bushover, B., Mehranbod, C. A., Roberts, L. E., Gobaud, A. N., Fish, C., Gao, X., … & Morrison, C. N. (2024). Temperature and firearm violence in four US cities: testing competing hypotheses. Injury prevention