Debra Furr-Holden

Professor of Epidemiology

Professional overview

Debra M. Furr-Holden is an epidemiologist and passionate advocate for health equity. A public health professional with broad expertise in health disparities and policy-level interventions toward health equity, her scholarship encompasses a range of topics including drug and alcohol dependence epidemiology, psychiatric epidemiology, and prevention science.

Dean Furr-Holden hails from Michigan State University, where she was the C.S. Mott Endowed Professor of Public Health and associate dean for public health integration. In announcing her appointment, effective July 2022, NYU President Andrew Hamilton noted Dr. Furr-Holden’s extensive experience working with local and national policymakers, her skill at team-building and success as a mentor, and her exceptional talent as a communicator on public health and health equity issues.

Indeed, it is Dean Furr-Holden’s action-oriented research and commitment to training the next generation of public health practitioners that dovetails perfectly with GPH’s mission to use data-driven interventions and cutting-edge innovation to identify and implement equitable solutions to both domestic and international public health challenges.

In addition to her endowed professorship at MSU, Dr. Furr-Holden served as director of the NIH-funded Flint Center for Health Equity Solutions at the College of Human Medicine. During the Covid-19 pandemic she was appointed to the Michigan Coronavirus Task Force on Racial Disparities, the Greater Flint Coronavirus Task Force on Racial Inequity, and the New York City African American Covid-19 Task Force. Most notably, in Michigan and Flint the racial disparity in Covid-19 cases and deaths among African Americans was eliminated.

Prior to her appointments at MSU Dr. Furr-Holden was an assistant (2007) and later associate (2011) professor at Johns Hopkins’ Bloomberg School of Public Health, where she retains an appointment as an adjunct professor. Before Johns Hopkins, she was a research scientist at the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation and a faculty member at Morgan State University.

Dean Furr-Holden is a widely published scholar whose writings include more than 120 peer-reviewed papers in high impact journals. In 2021 she published a seminal article in Addiction that highlighted racial disparities in opioid overdose deaths over the past two decades, and she was recently quoted in an exclusive article in The New York Times examining the demography of deaths nationwide from Covid-19.

Dean Furr-Holden is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the White House Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers; the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine Junior Faculty Mentoring Award; and the Meeting the Moment for Public Health Award, recognizing the Michigan Coronavirus Task Force on Racial Disparities, of which she is a founding member.

Education

BA, Johns Hopkins University Krieger School of Arts & Sciences, Baltimore, MA

PhD, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MA

Publications

Publications

Neighborhood alcohol outlets and the association with violent crime in one mid-Atlantic City: The implications for zoning policy

Neighborhood Environment and Marijuana Use in Urban Young Adults

Neighborhood Environment and Urban African American Marijuana Use during High School

Objective and perceived neighborhood characteristics and tobacco use among young adults

Off-premise alcohol outlets and substance use in young and emerging adults

Posttreatment drug use abstinence: Does the majority program clientele matter?

Real-time tracking of neighborhood surroundings and mood in urban drug misusers: Application of a new method to study behavior in its geographical context

Risk for Exposure to Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drugs on the Route to and from School: The Role of Alcohol Outlets

The role of substance use in adherence to HIV medication and medical appointments

Use of mobile phones, computers and internet among clients of an inner-city community psychiatric clinic

Alcohol environment, perceived safety, and exposure to alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs in early adolescence

Cigarillo use among high-risk urban young adults

Drug Use Disorder (DUD) Questionnaire: Scale Development and Validation

Exploring walking path quality as a factor for urban elementary school children's active transport to school

Marijuana as a Predictor of Concurrent Substance Use Among Motor Vehicle Operators

Neighborhood environment and urban schoolchildren's risk for being overweight

"Unplugged": A school-based randomized control trial to prevent and reduce adolescent substance use in the Czech Republic

Disordered neighborhood environments and risk-taking propensity in late childhood through adolescence

Mobilizing for policy: Using community-based participatory research to impose minimum packaging requirements on small cigars

Neighborhood & Family Effects on Learning Motivation among Urban African American Middle School Youth

Neighborhood disorder and juvenile drug arrests: A preliminary investigation using the NIfETy instrument

Neighborhood drug markets: A risk environment for bacterial sexually transmitted infections among urban youth

Neighborhood environment and internalizing problems in African American children

Sex specific trajectories in cigarette smoking behaviors among students participating in the Unplugged school-based randomized control trial for substance use prevention

Suicide deaths and nonfatal hospital admissions for deliberate self-harm in the United States