Neeraj Sood

Biography

Neeraj Sood, PhD, is professor at the USC Price School of Public Policy with joint appointments in the USC Keck School of Medicine USC Marshall School of Business, and USC Viterbi School of Engineering. He is also a senior scholar and founding member of the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics. His research focuses on pharmaceutical markets, health insurance, economics of innovation, infectious diseases, Medicare, and global health. He has published over 170 papers in peer-reviewed journals in economics, medicine, and policy. His research has been supported by the National Institutes for Health (NIH), National Science Foundation (NSF) and other prominent funders. His work has been featured in media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Washington Post, The Economist, U.S. News and World Report, and Scientific American. Sood holds the lifetime honorary title of National Associate of the National Academies of Science Engineering and Medicine, recognizing his extraordinary service to national research on matters of science, engineering and medicine. He is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research – the nation’s premier economic research organization, a past board member of the American Society of Health Economists, a member of the health board of advisors for the Congressional Budget Office, and scholar in residence at Amazon. Prior to joining USC, he was a senior economist at RAND and a professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. Sood has consulted for several organizations in health including health insurers, start-ups seeking to improve value of health, pharmaceutical firms and industry groups. He has also been an expert witness on matters related to health care markets with an emphasis on pharmaceutical markets. 

Selected Publications

• Lam, C. N., Kumar, N., Herzig, S. E., Unger, J. B., & Sood, N. (2025). Associations between COVID-19 infection, symptom severity, perceived susceptibility, and long-term adherence to protective behaviors: The Los Angeles Pandemic Surveillance Cohort Study. PLOS One, 20(6).
• Kumar, N., Lam, C. N., Lee, R., Unger, J. B., & Sood, N. (2025). The association between baseline physical and mental health and the risk of postacute sequelae of COVID-19 infection. Scientific Reports, 15(1).
• Bravata, D., Cantor, J., Sood, N., & Whaley, C. (2025). Back to school: The effect of school visits during COVID-19 on COVID-19 outcomes. Journal of Health Economics, 102, 103025.