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Ijeoma Opara is an Associate Professor of Public Health in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Yale School of Public Health. Dr. Opara is also the director of The Substance Abuse and Sexual Health (SASH) lab (www.oparalab.org) and a faculty fellow in the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS at Yale. Dr. Opara’s research focuses on HIV/AIDS, HCV, and substance use prevention among adolescents of color and highlighting racial-gender specific protective factors among Black adolescent girls. She primarily uses strengths-based approaches in her work to highlight resiliency, empowerment, and cultural strengths in ethnic minority families and their role in prevention.

Dr. Opara is a former NIDA T-32 pre-doctoral fellow in the Behavioral Sciences Training in Drug Abuse Research program at NYU Meyers College of Nursing from 2018-2019. This award supported her dissertation research, which examined protective factors for sexual risk behavior and drug use among Black and Hispanic girls living in Paterson, NJ.

Dr. Opara was named the 2020 NIH Director’s Early Independence Award recipient which funds her project on neighborhoods impact on substance use and mental health among urban youth in Paterson, NJ for the next five years. More information about Dr. Opara’s grant can be found at: https://commonfund.nih.gov/earlyindependence/awardrecipients

Principal Investigator, Integrating Community Based Participatory Research and Machine Learning Methods to Predict Youth Substance Use Disorders for Urban Cities in New Jersey. Active

Principal Investigator, Understanding the Role of Neighborhoods on Urban Youth’s Substance Use and Mental Health: A Community-Based Substance Abuse Prevention Project. Active

Weerakoon SM, Srikanth N, Aivadyan C, Takenaka BP, Rose R, Rutledge JD, Wan X, Opara I (2025).
A nationally representative analysis of substance use and sexual health correlates associated with HIV and STI testing among adolescents
AIDS and Behavior, 29 (3), 919-932. doi: 10.1007/s10461-024-04575-w.

Opara I, Weerakoon SM, Brooks Stephens JR, Choe T, Gunn JF, Thrasher SS (2025).
Relationship between suicide ideation and attempts, bully victimization, dating violence, and depressive symptoms among Black and Hispanic youth
Suicide and Life Threatening Behavior, 55 (1), e13015. doi: 10.1111/sltb.13015. PMCID: PMC11074240.

Douglas RD, Alli JO, Gaylord-Harden N, Opara I, Gilreath T (2025).
Examining the integrated model of the interpersonal-psychological theory of suicide and intersectionality theory among Black male adolescents
Suicide and Life Threatening Behavior, 55 (1), e13066. doi: 10.1111/sltb.13066. PMCID: PMC11347718.

Opara I, Asabor E, Rutledge J, Brooks Stephens JR, Cayo S, Duran-Becerra B, Abrams J (2025).
Empowerment in prevention: A qualitative inquiry into Black girl-centred strategies for reducing HIV/STI and drug misuse risk
Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters [Epub 2025 Jan 29]. doi: 10.1080/26410397.2024.2444728.

Weerakoon SM, Srikanth N, Aivadyan C, Takenaka BP, Rose R, Rutledge JD, Sissoko G, Opara I (2024).
Predictors of HIV and STI testing among sexually active Black adolescents: Results from YRBSS 2019-2021
Journal of HIV/AIDS and Social Services [Epub 2024 Dec 23]. doi: 10.1080/15381501.2024.2435882.