People

Saba Rouhani
Saba Rouhani, PhD, MSc
NYU School of Global Public Health - Assistant Professor
Email: saba.rouhani@nyu.edu
Education
PhD, Global Disease Epidemiology & Control, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
MSc, Control of Infectious Diseases, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
BSc Medical Microbiology, University of Edinburgh
BIO
Saba Rouhani is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology. Her research is focused on epidemiology of overdose and other drug-related harms within the context of changing drug and criminal justice policies. She is particularly interested in characterizing reforms to policing and prosecution of people who use drugs, and measuring their impacts on health outcomes. Dr. Rouhani’s research has been published in the International Journal of Drug Policy, Drug and Alcohol Dependence, Journal of Urban Health, American Journal of Public Health and Preventive Medicine.

Dr. Rouhani completed a T32 Drug Dependence Epidemiology Training fellowship funded by the National Institutes of Health/National Institute on Drug Abuse in 2020 and worked as research faculty in the Department of Health, Behavior and Society at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health prior to joining NYU.
Projects
Principal Investigator, Law Enforcement Perspectives and Experiences of the Changing Drug Policy Landscape: A Qualitative Study with Baltimore City Police Officers. Completed
Publications

Recent

Lindenfeld Z, Mauri AI, Rouhani S, Willison CE (2025).
Specialized mental health crisis response activities within US law enforcement agencies
Community Mental Health Journal [Epub 2025 Aug 4]. doi: 10.1007/s10597-025-01507-3.

Rouhani S, Machavariani E, McSorley AM, Todd TL, Purtle J (2025).
Disparities in willingness to call the police in a 2023 survey of US adults: Implications for alternative crisis response programs
Preventive Medicine, 198, 108358. doi: 10.1016/j.ypmed.2025.108358.

Rouhani S, Bather JR, Cuevas AG, Omari I, Harris A, McSorley AM, Rhodes-Bratton B, Goodman MS (2025).
Racial discrimination and substance use: Results from a 2023 survey of racism and public health in the United States
Substance Use and Misuse. doi: 10.1080/10826084.2025.2537836.

Schneider KE, Nestadt DF, Martin EM, Morris M, Rouhani S, Weir BW, Sherman SG (2025).
Substance checking outreach and PrEP engagement (SCOPE) study: Protocol for a non-randomised clinical trial in Baltimore, Maryland USA
BMJ Open, 15 (7), e101380. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2025-101380. PMCID: PMC12273123.

Khezri M, Kimball S, McKnight C, Rouhani S, Bunting AM, Karamouzian M, Ompad DC, Des Jarlais D (2025).
Harms associated with injecting in public spaces: A global systematic review and meta-analysis
International Journal of Drug Policy, 140, 104819. doi: 10.1016/j.drugpo.2025.104819.


Notable

Rouhani S, Schneider KE, Rao A, Urquhart GJ, Morris M, LaSalle L, Sherman SG (2021).
Perceived vulnerability to overdose-related arrests among people who use drugs in Maryland
International Journal of Drug Policy, 98, 103426. doi: 10.1016/j.drugpo.2021.103426.

Rouhani S, Decker MR, Tomko C, Silberzahn B, Allen ST, Park JN, Footer KHA, Sherman SG (2021).
Resilience among cisgender and transgender women in street-based sex work in Baltimore, Maryland
Womens Health Issues, 31 (2), 148-156. doi: 10.1016/j.whi.2020.11.002. PMCID: PMC8005437.

Rouhani S, Park JN, Morales KB, Green TC, Sherman SG (2020).
Trends in opioid initiation among people who use opioids in three US cities
Drug and Alcohol Review, 39 (4), 375-383. doi: 10.1111/dar.13060.

Dr. Rouhani's ORCID Profile