Dr. Ronald E. Cossman is a Research Professor and Research Fellow at the SSRC, Principal Investigator for the Northeast Mississippi Area Health Education Center and P.I. for the Mississippi Center for Health Workforce. Dr. Cossman focuses his research on the spatial analysis and visualization of health conditions. He uses Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and data visualization technologies to investigate the relationships between social and environmental factors and resulting health outcomes such as death rate patterns and chronic illness patterns. His research has appeared in the Population Health Metrics, American Journal of Public Health, Population Research and Policy Review, the International Journal of Health Geographics, Health & Place, and Journal of Maps.
He has also authored several policy papers and policy briefs for the Mississippi Health Policy Research Center including “Leading Causes of Death Among Children in Mississippi,” “Impacts of Primary Seat Belt Laws on Motor Vehicle Deaths Among Mississippi’s Youth”, “Motor Vehicle Injuries and Deaths Among Children in Mississippi: The Role of a DUI Child Endangerment Law” and “Underage Drinking and Driving in Mississippi: A Review of the Issue and Synthesis of the Literature.”
Dr. Cossman earned his bachelor’s degree in economics at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, FL (1992), his master’s degree in demography and population studies from Florida State University in Tallahassee, FL (1993), and his doctoral degree in geography from the University of Colorado, Boulder (2001). His dissertation title was “Secular Trends and Spatial Clusters of Inequality in U.S. Metropolitan Areas, 1970 to 1990.”
Dr. Cossman’s community service is through Starkville in Motion, a grass-roots organization promoting the development and maintenance of bike lanes, sidewalks, trails and improving pedestrian and bicyclist safety in Starkville Mississippi and Oktibbeha County. He authored the funded $1.5 million Lynn Lane multi-use path grant on behalf of the City of Starkville. He was co-author for the funded $280,000 Safe Routes to Schools grant through the Mississippi Department of Transportation on behalf of the Starkville School District.
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8676-7736