Changemakers in Family Planning: Andreia Alexander
Contraception
Awarded 2021
Changemakers in Family Planning
Andreia Alexander, MD, PhD, MPH
Indiana University
$60,000

Andreia Alexander is an emergency medicine physician and public health researcher who specializes in qualitative methods and sexual and reproductive health. She earned her BS in Health Science Education from the University of Florida where she was first introduced to sexual and reproductive health (SRH) promotion. She then earned a Master of Public Health from Indiana University, Bloomington where she focused her academic efforts on health disparities in STI and HIV prevention. Dr. Alexander then worked as a high school teacher in Cottondale, AL before returning to school at Indiana University to earn an MD/PhD in Health Behavior where she focused on patient and provider decision-making models regarding SRH interventions (particularly around HIV and HPV) and developed a niche in qualitative research methods. Dr. Alexander completed her residency training in Emergency Medicine at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School in Newark, NJ. She is now an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis, IN.

Dr. Alexander’s overall research vision is to implement patient-centered comprehensive contraception interventions in non-traditional settings to increase access to contraception in our most vulnerable and marginalized populations. She will start by using an implementation science framework to translate contraception interventions into the emergency department setting, including the initiation of LARCs. In addition to increasing access to contraception in marginalized populations in non-traditional settings, she also aims to create evidence regarding contraception efficacy in these non-traditional settings to inform health policy.