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

Alcohol- and drug-involved driving in the United States: Methodology for the 2007 national roadside survey

Efectos de la Exposición de los Adolescentes a la Violencia en la Comunidad: El Proyecto MORE

Exposure to hazardous neighborhood environments in late childhood and anxiety

Introduction to this special issue

Neighborhood disorder and incarceration history among urban substance users

Neighborhood incivilities, perceived neighborhood safety, and walking to school among urban-dwelling children

The growth of neighborhood disorder and marijuana use among urban adolescents: A case for policy and environmental interventions*

The prevalence of alcohol use disorders among night-time weekend drivers

Early sexual initiation among urban african american male middle school youth in baltimore city

Metric properties of the neighborhood inventory for environmental typology (NIfETy): An environmental assessment tool for measuring indicators of violence, alcohol, tobacco, and other drug exposures

Perceived School and Neighborhood Safety, Neighborhood Violence and Academic Achievement in Urban School Children

Biological markers of drug use in the club setting

Community violence and youth: Affect, behavior, substance use, and academics

Toward national estimates of alcohol use disorders among drivers: results from the National Roadside Survey Pilot Program.

The consequences of providing drinkers with blood alcohol concentration information on assessments of alcohol impairment and drunk-driving risk

The NIfETy method for environmental assessment of neighborhood-level indicators of violence, alcohol, and other drug exposure

Multimethod measurement of high-risk drinking locations: Extending the portal survey method with follow-up telephone interviews

Drinking status and fatal crashes: Which drinkers contribute most to the problem?

Drug and alcohol-impaired driving among electronic music dance event attendees

Portal surveys of time-out drinking locations: A tool for studying binge drinking and AOD use

Emerging adults' substance use and risky behaviors in club settings

Developmentally inspired drug prevention: Middle school outcomes in a school-based randomized prevention trial

Epidemiologic differences in drug dependence - A US-UK cross-national comparison

Drug use among welfare recipients in the United States

The suspected association between methamphetamine ('ice') smoking and frequent episodes of alcohol intoxication: Data from the 1993 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse