Magdalena Cerdá, DrPH
NYU Langone Health - Professor, Department of Population Health and Department of Emergency Medicine
NYU Langone Health - Director, Center on Opioid Epidemiology and Policy
NYU Langone Health - Director, Center on Opioid Epidemiology and Policy
Education
DrPH, Public Health, Harvard University, School of Public HealthMPH, Public Health, Yale University
BS, Communication, Cornell University, Agriculture and Life Sciences
Research Interests
Opioid use disorder, Violence prevention, Firearms, Prescription drugs, Heroin, Drug overdose, Social determinants of injury, Marijuana, Homicide, Suicide BIO
Magdalena Cerdá is Professor of Population Health at New York University Langone Health and Director of the NYU Center on Opioid Epidemiology and Policy. Her work integrates approaches from social and psychiatric epidemiology to examine how social contexts shape violent behavior, substance use and common forms of mental illness. Her expertise extends to the epidemiology and policy determinants of substance use with a particular focus on opioid and marijuana use, including two NIDA-funded studies to examine the impact that prescription opioid policies and marijuana legalization have on opioid prescribing, chronic pain, and opioid overdoses, and a NIDA-funded study to examine the impact that national marijuana legalization in Uruguay has on substance use. Dr. Cerdá also uses agent-based models to simulate the potential impact of city- and neighborhood-level prevention programs and policies on violence. Prior to joining NYU, Dr. Cerdá served as the Vice-Chancellor’s Endowed Chair on Violence Prevention at UC-Davis and on the faculty at the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health. Dr. Cerdá received her DrPH from Harvard University and was a Robert Wood Johnson Health and Society Scholar at the University of Michigan. Projects
Principal Investigator, Comparative Evaluation of Overdose Prevention Programs in New York City and Rhode Island. Active
Principal Investigator, Examining the Synergistic Effects of Cannabis and Prescription Opioid Policies on Chronic Pain, Opioid Prescribing, and Opioid Overdose. Active
Principal Investigator, Large Data Spatiotemporal Modeling of Optimal Combinations of Interventions to Reduce Opioid Harm in the United States. Active
Principal Investigator, Reducing Drug-Related Mortality Using Predictive Analytics: A Randomized, Statewide, Community Intervention Trial. Active
Principal Investigator, Understanding the Short- and Long-term Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Overdose Crisis. Active
Principal Investigator, Health and Social Consequences of Marijuana Legalization. Completed
Principal Investigator, Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs and Opioid-Related Harm. Completed
Principal Investigator, Substance Abuse History, Mental Health and Firearm Violence: From Evidence To Action. Completed
Publications
Recent
Doonan SM, Wheeler-Martin K, Davis C, Mauro C, Bruzelius E, Crystal S, Mannes Z, Gutkind S, Keyes KM, Rudolph KE, Samples H, Henry SG, Hasin DS, Martins SS, Cerda M (2025).
How do restrictions on opioid prescribing, harm reduction, and treatment coverage policies relate to opioid overdose deaths in the United States in 2013-2020? An application of a new state opioid policy scale
International Journal of Drug Policy, 137, 104713. doi: 10.1016/j.drugpo.2025.104713.
How do restrictions on opioid prescribing, harm reduction, and treatment coverage policies relate to opioid overdose deaths in the United States in 2013-2020? An application of a new state opioid policy scale
International Journal of Drug Policy, 137, 104713. doi: 10.1016/j.drugpo.2025.104713.
Santaella-Tenorio J, Rivera-Aguirre A, Hepler S, Kline D, Cantor J, DeYoreo M, Martins S, Krawczyk N, Cerda M (2025).
Rates of receiving medication for opioid use disorder and opioid overdose deaths during the early synthetic opioid crisis: A county-level analysis
Epidemiology, 36 (2), 186-195. doi: 10.1097/EDE.0000000000001816. PMCID: PMC11785500.
Rates of receiving medication for opioid use disorder and opioid overdose deaths during the early synthetic opioid crisis: A county-level analysis
Epidemiology, 36 (2), 186-195. doi: 10.1097/EDE.0000000000001816. PMCID: PMC11785500.
Sanchez-Pajaro A, Perez-Ferrer C, Barrera-Nunez DA, Cerda M, Thrasher JF, Barrientos-Gutierrez T (2025).
Municipal socioeconomic environment and recreational cannabis use in Mexico: Analysis of two nationally representative surveys
International Journal of Drug Policy, 136, 104704. doi: 10.1016/j.drugpo.2025.104704.
Municipal socioeconomic environment and recreational cannabis use in Mexico: Analysis of two nationally representative surveys
International Journal of Drug Policy, 136, 104704. doi: 10.1016/j.drugpo.2025.104704.
Martins SS, Bruzelius E, Mauro CM, Santaella-Tenorio J, Boustead AE, Wheeler-Martin K, Samples H, Hasin DS, Fink DS, Rudolph KE, Crystal S, Davis CS, Cerda M (2025).
The relationship of medical and recreational cannabis laws with opioid misuse and opioid use disorder in the USA: Does it depend on prior history of cannabis use?
International Journal of Drug Policy, 136, 104687. doi: 10.1016/j.drugpo.2024.104687.
The relationship of medical and recreational cannabis laws with opioid misuse and opioid use disorder in the USA: Does it depend on prior history of cannabis use?
International Journal of Drug Policy, 136, 104687. doi: 10.1016/j.drugpo.2024.104687.
Santaella-Tenorio J, Hepler SA, Kline DM, Rivera-Aguirre A, Cerda M (2025).
Santaella-Tenorio et al. respond to: Re: Estimation of opioid misuse prevalence in New York State counties, 2007-2018. A Bayesian spatio-temporal abundance model approach
American Journal of Epidemiology [Epub 2025 Jan 28]. doi: 10.1093/aje/kwae408.
Santaella-Tenorio et al. respond to: Re: Estimation of opioid misuse prevalence in New York State counties, 2007-2018. A Bayesian spatio-temporal abundance model approach
American Journal of Epidemiology [Epub 2025 Jan 28]. doi: 10.1093/aje/kwae408.
Notable
Prescription drug monitoring programs and opioid overdoses: Exploring sources of heterogeneity
Epidemiology, 30 (2), 212-220. doi: 10.1097/EDE.0000000000000950. PMCID: PMC6437666.
Cerda M, Wall M, Feng T, Keyes KM, Sarvet A, Schulenberg J, O'Malley PM, Pacula RL, Galea S, Hasin DS (2017).
Association of state recreational marijuana laws with adolescent marijuana use
JAMA Pediatrics, 171 (2), 142-149. doi: 10.1001/jamapediatrics.2016.3624. PMCID: PMC5365078.
Dr. Cerdá's Google Scholar Profile
Selected Press