Providence/Boston Center for AIDS Research (CFAR)

Kirsten Austad, MD, MPH, is a health equity focused implementation scientist and Co-Director of Boston University's Evans Center for Implementation & Improvement Science (CIIS). She possesses expertise in qualitative methods and novel mixed methods approaches. Her research focusing on advancing theory and methods within implementation science and improving delivery of evidence-based interventions to populations in the safety net setting with an emphasis on those with non-English language preference. As such she has experience conducting research in diverse multilingual settings and intervention adaptation. Her research is inspired by her clinical work as a hospitalist at BMC, by the six years she worked as Director of Women's Health programming for an NGO in Guatemala that service rural indigenous Maya communities, and by her broad training in Family Medicine.

Currently, she is supported by a K23 from NIMHD to adapt a transitional care intervention for patients with NELP. She was also the PI of the TIDE pilot trial funded by BMC's Health Equity Accelerator, which tested a package of language-concordant discharge teaching tools for patients with NELP in a pilot randomized controlled trial (RCT). As Co-Director of CIIS she provides mentorship to early career faculty completing the implementation science fellowship, participates in campus education on implementation science, and provides consults for others on campus looking to integrate implementation science into their research and practice.

Areas of expertise: implementation science, populations with non-English language preference (limited English proficiency)
Methods expertise: qualitative methods, rapid qual analysis, discrete choice experiments, intervention adaptation, cultural adaptation