Sitaram (Ram) Vangala is a Principal Statistician and Associate Director of DOMStat. His research interests include biomedical and social scientific applications of Bayesian methods, causal inference in observational studies, and statistical learning with high-dimensional data. He has extensive experience collaborating with health services, quality improvement and social science researchers on study design, data management and statistical analysis. He has assisted numerous UCLA investigators with grant preparation, protocol development, manuscript writing and responses to statistical review, and he regularly participates in seminars for junior investigators on drafting grant applications and best practices for clinical data management. His work for DOMStat additionally includes mentoring junior statisticians, trainees and research assistants.
Google Scholar Profile
PubMed MyBibliography
Selected Manuscripts
Leuchter RK, Craff M, Vangala S, Tseng CH, Arbanas JC, Tabatabai-Yazdi C, Hadfield M, Skinner D, Damberg CL, Sarkisian CA, Mafi JN, Kahn KL. Socioeconomically disadvantaged groups may have underused the emergency department for nonavoidable visits, 2018–22. Health Aff. 2025.
Mafi JN, Vangala S, Kapral MK, Wu PE, Cui M, Romanov A, Kahn KL. Hospitalizations and mortality among older adults with and without restricted access to nirmatrelvir-ritonavir. JAMA. 2025.
Rockwell MS, Vangala S, Hadfield M, Cantor J, Skinner D, Craff M, Fendrick AM, Damberg CL, Kahn K, Mafi JN. Demographic variation in US outpatient hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin use during the COVID-19 pandemic. Health Aff. 2025.
Nelson BB, Dudovitz RN, Thompson LR, Vangala S, Zevallos-Roberts E, Gulsrud A, Porras-Javier L, Romley JA, Herrera P, Aceves I, Chung PJ. Early childhood care coordination through 211: a randomized clinical trial. Pediatrics. 2024.
Saccardo S, Dai H, Han MA, Vangala S, Hoo J, Fujimoto J. Field testing the transferability of behavioural science knowledge on promoting vaccinations. Nat Hum Behav. 2024.
Reiff JS, Zhang JC, Gallus J, Dai H, Pedley NM, Vangala S, Leuchter RK, Goshgarian G, Fox CR, Han M, Croymans DM. When peer comparison information harms physician well-being. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2022.
Mafi JN, Craff M, Vangala S, Pu T, Skinner D, Tabatabai-Yazdi C, Nelson A, Reid R, Agniel D, Tseng CH, Sarkisian C, Damberg CL, Kahn KL. Trends in US ambulatory care patterns during the COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2021. JAMA. 2022.
Szilagyi PG, Thomas K, Shah MD, Vizueta N, Cui Y, Vangala S, Kapteyn A. Changes in COVID-19 vaccine intent from April/May to June/July 2021. JAMA. 2021.
Dai H, Saccardo S, Han MA, Roh L, Raja N, Vangala S, Modi H, Pandya S, Sloyan M, Croymans DM. Behavioral nudges increase COVID-19 vaccinations. Nature. 2021.
Szilagyi PG, Thomas K, Shah MD, Vizueta N, Cui Y, Vangala S, Kapteyn A. National trends in the US public's likelihood of getting a COVID-19 vaccine-April 1 to December 8, 2020. JAMA. 2020.