Alissa Davis

As an epidemiologist, Dr. Davis focuses her research on improving marginalized populations’ access to health care, thereby reducing HIV, sexually transmitted infection, tuberculosis, and drug abuse.

Dr. Alissa Davis is an Associate Professor at Columbia University School of Social Work and Faculty Affiliate of the Social Intervention Group. Her research focuses on the development of interventions to improve linkage to and retention in care for HIV/STI and substance use services for marginalized populations, including racial/ethnic and sexual minorities, individuals involved with the criminal justice system, and people who inject drugs (PWID). Her research integrates both quantitative and qualitative methods. She has worked both domestically and internationally in Eastern Europe and Central Asia and China. Her work has been supported by the National Institute of Drug Abuse, the National Institute of Mental Health, the Fogarty International Center, and the Mellon Foundation.

Her current research focuses on developing and adapting a couples-based intervention to improve antiretroviral therapy adherence among people who inject drugs in Kazakhstan and examining HIV incidence among women infected with Trichomonas vaginalis infection in New York City.

Before coming to the School of Social Work in July 2018, Dr. Davis was an NIH T32 Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies at the Columbia University Medical Center and the New York State Psychiatric Institute. She received a PhD in Epidemiology from Indiana University-Bloomington and an MA in International Relations from Syracuse University.