Tracy R. Nichols, PhD

Dr. Tracy R. Nichols is Professor and Chair of the Department of Community and Global Health in the College of Health. She is a behavioral scientist with a core focus on developing and evaluating interventions to reduce health inequities. She applies an intersectional and social justice lens to her work, conducting community-engaged, mixed methods research that employs both arts-based and traditional methodologies. As a teacher-scholar, she enjoys developing
collaborative research teams comprised of undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, and community members.

Dr. Nichols has applied her knowledge of the social and developmental factors of human behavior to public health issues throughout her career. Her early work focused on the prevention and etiology of adolescent substance use and violence. She was a member of the team that developed and evaluated the Life Skills Training (LST) program, one of the top research-based prevention programs in the US. She has also partnered with community-based organizations to develop, implement, and evaluate health promotion programs serving low-income women and adolescent mothers and has examined birthing experiences among Bhutanese refugees. Her Narrative Stigma Reduction (NSR) Lab is conducting scoping reviews on (a) Narrative-based Stigma Reduction Interventions and (b) Coordinated Care Models for Birthing People Who Use Drugs as well as investigating the use of digitalized stories to reduce stigma for parents who use drugs. She also works closely with her community partners, NC Survivors Union, to adapt and evaluate their autobiographical story share process--Narcofeminism Storyshare--into a stigma reduction training for healthcare and social service providers who serve people who use drugs. Dr. Nichols has recently co-founded the Sexual and Reproductive Health [SRH] Power Lab with Drs. Lindley, Mishtal, and Wakeel, where they are examining mis- and dis-information around the use of hormonal contraceptives as well as trends in contraceptive use among college students.

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Education

PhD, Developmental Psychology, Columbia University
MPhil, Developmental Psychology, Columbia University
BA, The New School for Social Research

Areas of Research and Publications

Health-related stigma
Perinatal substance use
Sexual and reproductive health
Process and developmental evaluation
Adolescent and family health

Courses