
Kaitlin Piper, MPH is a NRSA-funded PhD candidate at Emory University Rollins School of Public Health. Her research focuses on developing, implementing, and evaluating behavioral health interventions for adolescents, particularly for adolescents involved in the juvenile justice system. She specializes in adolescent health issues (including trauma/mental health, substance use, and sexual behavior), maternal and child health, family-centered behavioral health programs, and juvenile justice-involved populations. As a methodologist, she has expertise in implementation science methodology, advanced quantitative and qualitative methods, and systems-based methods, including agent-based simulation modeling and configurational comparative methods. She was recently awarded a NIH/NIDA F31 pre-doctoral fellowship for her dissertation research, where she is collaborating with the Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice to study the implementation of behavioral health services for justice-involved youth and families. She is also the PI of two R25 subawards, where she is studying the impacts of family trauma on youth justice system involvement.
In addition to the NIH fellowship, over the course of her career, she was awarded 9 different competitive research fellowships including the Criminal Justice Research Training Fellowship at Brown University, Center for Excellence in Maternal and Child Health Fellowship at Emory University, Models of Infectious Disease Agent Study (MIDAS) Research Fellowship, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Fellowship at University of Pittsburgh, and the Livingston Fellowship for Outstanding Doctoral Achievements. She has over 22 publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals such as Health Affairs, Journal of Adolescent Health, Implementation Science Communications, and Behavioral Medicine; as well as over 50 presentations at national and international scientific conferences.
Areas of Interest
- Adolescent Health/Child Health
- Community Based Research
- Health Services Research
- Human Development and Family Sciences
- Implementation Science
- Maternal and Child Health
- Research Methods
- Social Determinants of Health
Education
- BS 2015, University of Pittsburgh
- MPH 2018, Emory University
- PhD 2023, Emory University
Affiliations & Activities
- Consulting Researcher for the Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice Family Advisory Council Work Group
- Emory Maternal and Child Health Center of Excellence Fellow
- Brown University Criminal Justice Research Training Program Fellow
- NIH/NIDA Pre-doctoral Fellow
- Editorial DEI Advisory Board member for Implementation Research and Practice Journal
- Co-leading department DEI PhD workgroup
- Teaching Assistant for courses including Translation and Implementation Sciences (GH 509), Advanced Topics in Implementation Science (GH 706), Qualitative Research Methods (BSHES 538), and Community Assessment (BSHES 534)
- Academic Consortium on Criminal Justice Health (ACCJH) member
- Justice Community Opioid Innovation Network (JCOIN) member
- Emory Network for Evaluation and Implementation Sciences (NEISE) member
- Science of Dissemination and Implementation in Health member
- Society for Implementation Research Collaboration (SIRC) member
- “All Things Configured” Configurational Comparative Methods (CCMs) National Workgroup member
- American Public Health Association (APHA) member
- Society for Public Health Education (SOPHE) member
- THRIVE Community Action Board Member
Publications
- Kaitlin N Piper, Lauren L Brown, Ilyssa Tamler, Ameeta S Kalokhe, Jessica M Sales, 2021, Application of the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research to Facilitate Delivery of Trauma-Informed HIV Care, Ethnicity and Disease, ,
- Kaitlin N. Piper, Regine Haardörfer, Cam Escoffery, Anandi N. Sheth & Jessica Sales , 2021, Exploring the heterogeneity of factors that may influence implementation of PrEP in family planning clinics: a latent profile analysis, Implementation Science Communications, ,
- Kaitlin N Piper, Cam Escoffery, Jessica M Sales, Anandi N Sheth, 2021, Models of HIV Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis Care Used in Title X Family Planning Clinics in the Southern U.S, Journal of Adolescent Health, ,
- Kaitlin N. Piper, Amy Elder, Tiffaney Renfro, Allison Iwan, Marizen Ramirez & Briana Woods-Jaeger , 2021, The Importance of Anti-Racism in Trauma-Informed Family Engagement, Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research , ,
- Jennifer E Becan, Jacqueline Horan Fisher, Ingrid D Johnson, John P Bartkowski, Robert Seaver, Sheena K Gardner, Gregory A Aarons, Tiffaney L Renfro, Roxanne Muiruri, Lindrell Blackwell, Kaitlin N Piper, Tisha A Wiley, Danica K Knight, 2020, Improving Substance Use Services for Juvenile Justice-Involved Youth: Complexity of Process Improvement Plans in a Large Scale Multi-site Study, Adm Policy Ment Health, ,
- Kaitlin N. Piper, Julia Schiff, Clara Riddick, Betelihem Getachew, Eugene W. Farber, Ameeta Kalokhe & Jessica M. Sales , 2020, Barriers and facilitators to implementation of trauma support services at a large HIV treatment center in the Southern United States, AIDS Care, ,
- Sofia Huang, Sheena Gardner, Kaitlin N Piper, Ashley S Coleman, Jennifer E Becan, Angela A Robertson, Katherine S Elkington, 2020, Bridging Systems to Implement HIV/STI Programing within the Juvenile Justice System: Strengths and Challenges of a Local Change Team Approach, AIDS Education and Prevention, ,
- Briana Woods-Jaeger, Emily Siedlik, Amber Adams, Kaitlin Piper, Paige O’Connor & Jannette Berkley-Patton , 2020, Building a Contextually-Relevant Understanding of Resilience among African American Youth Exposed to Community Violence, Behavioral Medicine, ,
- Kaitlin N. Piper, Tyler J. Fuller, Amy A. Ayers, Danielle N. Lambert, Jessica M. Sales & Gina M. Wingood , 2019, A Qualitative Exploration of Religion, Gender Norms, and Sexual Decision-Making within African American Faith-Based Communities, Sex Roles, ,
- Briana Woods-Jaeger, Jannette Berkley-Patton, Kaitlin N. Piper, Paige O’Connor, Tiffaney L. Renfro, and Kelsey Christensen, 2019, Building a Culture of Health to Mitigate Negative Consequences of Community Violence Exposure: Perspectives from African American Youth, Health Affairs, ,
- Kaitlin N Piper, Katherine J Baxter, Martha Wetzel, Courtney McCracken, Curtis Travers, Bethany Slater, Sarah B Cairo, David H Rothstein, Robert Cina, Melvin Dassinger, Patrick Bonasso, Aaron Lipskar, Naomi-Liza Denning, Eunice Huang, Sohail R Shah, Megan E Cunningham, Raquel Gonzalez, Jeremy D Kauffman, Kurt F Heiss, Mehul V Raval, Pediatric Surgical Research Collaborative - PedSRC, 2019, Provider Education Decreases Opioid Prescribing After Pediatric Umbilical Hernia Repair, Journal of Pediatric Surgery, ,
- Heather L Short, Natalie Taylor, Kaitlin Piper, Mehul V Raval, 2018, Appropriateness of a Pediatric-Specific Enhanced Recovery Protocol Using a Modified Delphi Process and Multidisciplinary Expert Panel, Journal of Pediatric Surgery, ,
- Kaitlin Piper, Ada Youk ,A. Everette James III, Supriya Kumar , 2017, Paid Sick Days and Stay-At-Home Behavior for Influenza, Plos One, ,