Kaitlyn Jaffe Named Substance Use Disorder Systems Performance Scholar by Brandeis-Harvard SPIRE Center

Kaitlyn Jaffe

Kaitlyn Jaffe, assistant professor of community health education in the School of Public Health and Health Sciences (SPHHS), has been named one of three 2024-25 Substance Use Disorder (SUD) Systems Performance Scholars by the Brandeis-Harvard SPIRE Center.<_o3a_p>

The one-year mentorship program supports early career scholars who demonstrate an interest in developing a program of addiction health services research through tailored ongoing mentorship from experienced addiction health services researchers. In the 2024-25 cohort, Jaffe is joined by Latoya Attis from Yeshiva University and Orrin Ware from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.<_o3a_p>

"I am honored to be selected as a Brandeis-Harvard SPIRE Center SUD Systems Performance Scholar," Jaffe says. "As an early career researcher, I look forward to the mentorship offered through this program while I seek to build my expertise in health services research, substance use treatment systems, and grantsmanship. And as a new resident of Massachusetts, I am eager to meet and learn from leading scholars in the substance use treatment field from across the state and beyond."<_o3a_p>

Funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), The Brandeis-Harvard SPIRE Center to Improve System Performance for Substance Use Disorder Treatment is a partnership of the Heller School Institute for Behavioral Health, part of the Schneider Institutes for Health Policy and Research, and Harvard Medical School Department of Health Care Policy.<_o3a_p>

The center focuses on its research to advance the science by stimulating research, learning and experimentation; drive the next generation of research; serve as a national resource for researchers, policymakers, providers and other stakeholders; and inform policy decisions that will have profound effects on the cost, quality and availability of SUD treatment services.<_o3a_p>

Jaffe, who joined the SPHHS faculty in 2023, is a medical sociologist investigating the social, structural and ethical issues surrounding randomized controlled trials (RCTs) for substance use disorders as well as inequities in access to medications for opioid use disorder.<_o3a_p>

She is project lead on a NIDA-funded project through Fordham University concerning the ethical considerations among RCT staff in substance use research and is also a co-investigator on a NIDA-funded study that aims to increase access to HIV prevention and care for people with opioid use disorder in Massachusetts jails.<_o3a_p>

More information on the study can be found on the SPHHS news website.<_o3a_p>

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