{"id":11929,"date":"2018-07-02T18:36:35","date_gmt":"2018-07-02T18:36:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tmc.edu\/news\/on-the-side-jessica-davila-ph-d\/"},"modified":"2019-08-16T15:04:14","modified_gmt":"2019-08-16T15:04:14","slug":"on-the-side-jessica-davila-ph-d","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tmc.edu\/news\/2018\/07\/on-the-side-jessica-davila-ph-d\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Jessica Davila, Ph.D., a clinical epidemiologist who’s also a yogi"},"content":{"rendered":"

NAME:<\/strong> Jessica Davila, Ph.D.
\nOCCUPATION:<\/strong> Program chief of the Health Services Research Methodology and Statistics Core at the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center; course director of Translational Research and Population Health at Baylor College of Medicine
\nINTEREST:<\/strong> Yoga instruction<\/p>\n

On a sunny Tuesday afternoon, Jessica Davila, Ph.D., stood on a green yoga mat in a mirrored studio at DEFINE body & mind<\/strong><\/a>\u2019s West University location, where she teaches weekly yoga classes.<\/p>\n

She inhaled deeply and began to quiet her mind. As she exhaled, she took a step forward with her right leg, raised up her arms and began the warrior pose sequence.<\/p>\n

Off the mat, Davila is a clinical epidemiologist who has worked extensively in public health. Her latest project involves HIV in Houston\u2019s homeless population. Funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration, the longitudinal study includes six cities in the United States with high rates of homelessness and focuses on developing interventions that can be implemented in each city.<\/p>\n

Davila and her team collaborated with Harris Health System\u2019s Thomas Street Health Center<\/strong><\/a>, a freestanding HIV clinic in Houston, to recruit approximately 180 homeless HIV patients and help meet some of their needs, including treatment for substance abuse and mental health conditions.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of them just needed a job, so we try to address those issues, as well as trying to promote the importance of health care, well-being and taking care of yourself so they can go out and \u2026 do all the things that they really want to do,\u201d Davila said.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an exciting study for Davila, a lifelong yogi, because it\u2019s another opportunity for her to incorporate health and wellness into people\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n

As a young girl growing up in Iowa, Davila often stayed with her grandmother while her parents worked. She watched her grandmother practice yoga every morning. Eventually, Davila started flowing through yoga movements and sequences alongside her grandmother.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a big appreciation for the benefits of yoga, the breathing and just how to calm your body down and calm your mind down, get centered, get focused every day as a routine,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Davila practiced yoga intermittently in college, but recommitted to it 15 years ago to help her manage the stress of juggling kids and a new job in a new city.<\/p>\n

In 2013, she became certified to teach all types of yoga, including Iyengar, Ashtanga, Vinyasa and even hammock yoga. She began her yoga career leading a full classroom of 35 students at YES Prep Northline charter middle and high school on Friday afternoons. At the same time, her section chief at Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center<\/strong><\/a> let her spearhead a health and wellness program to teach yoga and meditation classes on Tuesday afternoons in their department\u2019s conference room.<\/p>\n

Davila expanded her teaching practice and started leading classes at the YMCA for cancer survivors who had recently completed treatment.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they show up to come do some yoga, they\u2019re trusting you that you\u2019re going to take care of them, that you\u2019re not going to hurt them,\u201d she said. \u201cYou\u2019re going to make them better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many of Davila\u2019s clients included breast cancer survivors who took her classes to help ease tightness in their chests from surgery, and lung cancer survivors looking to alleviate difficulty breathing.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo many of the people who have come to my classes have been so over-treated with medication that the last thing they want is another pill,\u201d Davila said. \u201cThey want something that\u2019s going to help them, that they can do on their own, that\u2019s more of a longer-term solution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Davila seeks to heal their bodies \u201cfrom the inside out,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYoga\u2019s a way, I\u2019ve found, that people can often regain some normalcy in their life and get back into a routine,\u201d she said. \u201cAt those times when they\u2019re in need of that critical support, that\u2019s when I like to show up.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NAME: Jessica Davila, Ph.D. OCCUPATION: Program chief of the Health Services Research Methodology and Statistics Core at the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center; course director of Translational Research and Population Health at Baylor College of Medicine INTEREST: Yoga instruction On a sunny Tuesday afternoon, Jessica Davila, Ph.D., stood on a green yoga mat in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":11931,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2848,1527,678],"yoast_head":"\nMeet Jessica Davila, Ph.D., a clinical epidemiologist who's also a yogi - TMC News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tmc.edu\/news\/2018\/07\/on-the-side-jessica-davila-ph-d\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Meet Jessica Davila, Ph.D., a clinical epidemiologist who's also a yogi - TMC News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"NAME: Jessica Davila, Ph.D. OCCUPATION: Program chief of the Health Services Research Methodology and Statistics Core at the Michael E. 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