Bio
Joshua Barocas is an associate professor of medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine (CUSOM), an infectious diseases physician, PI of The Missing US Lab Project, and director of the Social Determinants of Health and Disparities Modeling Unit at CU. He leads an interdisciplinary research program that is specifically aimed at the goal of improving health outcomes for marginalized populations who are at high risk for overdose, and infectious diseases such as HIV, hepatitis C virus, and injection-related bacterial infections.
His research, which uses a combination of clinical epidemiology, health economics, simulation modeling, and cost-effectiveness, informs clinical decision making and health policy. He is engaged in research using these innovative methods to help understand the impact of and improve upon policies that affect people who use drugs. He has received funding from the National Institutes on Drug Abuse, including the prestigious Avenir Award. He has developed a microsimulation that simulates the natural history of injection drug use and projects the long-term outcomes such as overdose, endocarditis, and skin infections. Barocas has also used longitudinal data from across the U.S. to answer salient research questions. He serves as an associate editor for the International Journal of Drug Policy. He has published extensively in high impact journals including New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, Annals of Internal Medicine, and Lancet Public Health. His work has been featured in multiple media outlets including The Boston Globe, NPR, The New York Times, among others.