Laura E. Starbird, PhD, RN is Assistant Professor in the Department of Family and Community Health at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing. Her research focuses on the intersection of substance use, HIV, and women’s health. Dr. Starbird’s NIH-funded research seeks to improve the way organizations deliver care to marginalized women, rather than putting the burden on the individual patient to change. Her work stems from the belief that engaging in and receiving high quality healthcare should be the default, not the exception, for women and families affected by substance use disorder. To do this work, she is leading a study examining implementation of PrEP for HIV prevention among women who inject drugs in rural and urban primary care settings. Dr. Starbird completed postdoctoral training in Comparative and Cost-Effectiveness Research at Columbia University and the Center for Health Economics of Treatment Interventions for Substance Use, HIV, and HCV (CHERISH) at Weill Cornell Medicine. As a result, she also leads the cost analysis and economic evaluation of several interdisciplinary studies for substance use, HIV, and HCV in both the U.S. and internationally. These include interventions for adolescent girls in Haiti, female sex workers in Kazakhstan, and communities affected by the opioid crisis in New York State.
Dr. Starbird earned a PhD from Johns Hopkins University, an MS in Advanced Practice Public Health Nursing from the University of California, San Francisco.