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Emily Williams photo

Emily Williams

Professor, Health Systems and Population Health

Principal Investigator, Veterans Administration Puget Sound Health Care System
Principal Investigator, Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute

206-685-5048 | emwilli@uw.edu

Office HRC 443
Box 351621
3980 15th Ave NE, Seattle, WA 98195

Research Interests

Addictions, Social and Structural Determinants of Health and Health Care, HIV, PrEP, Implementation Science, Learning Health Systems, Evidence-based care for substance use and substance use disorders, Critical Race Theory, Mixed Methods

Bio

Emily Williams is an addictions health services and disparities researcher and an implementation scientist. She serves as Professor of Health Systems and Population Health and Director of the Doctoral Program in Health Services at the University of Washington. She also has affiliate appointments at the Denver-Seattle Center of Innovation for Veteran-Centered Value-Driven Care at VA Puget Sound Health Services Research & Development (HSR&D) and Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute.

Dr. Williams is interested in structural and related social determinants of health and their impacts on communities’ and individuals’ lived experiences, health behaviors, access to and receipt of health care, and health outcomes. She applies these interests to a research portfolio focused on substance use and HIV and specifically on understanding barriers to and increasing access to evidence-based care for unhealthy alcohol and opioid use in medical settings (e.g., primary care and HIV clinics) and community settings (e.g., syringe service programs and community pharmacies). Her research portfolio focuses in large part on communities disproportionately adversely impacted by structures that determine inequitable access to resources.

Dr. Williams’s studies include mixed methods formative and summative evaluations of implementation efforts and clinically-relevant policies, clinical epidemiology using large health systems data, and hybrid trials testing implementation strategies to improve care. She, in interdisciplinary partnership with others, currently leads research on tailoring and testing practice facilitation to implement evidence-based alcohol-related care in HIV clinics, refining decision aids to address unhealthy alcohol use and HIV prevention; in primary care, particularly among LGBT patients and women; and evaluating the influence of COVID-19-related policies on racialized disparities in receipt of and retention in treatment for opioid use disorders. She works in partnership with diverse and interdisciplinary researchers at multiple career stages and uses Critical Race Theory and community-engaged methods to guide her disparities research.

Dr. Williams also mentors junior investigators at all stages and serves as multiple PI on two federally-funded training grants in HSPop–an AHRQ T32 and the “Training in Equity and Structural Solutions for Addictions” T32, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and leads the Alcohol, Behavior, and Health Services Core within the Veterans Aging Cohort Study (VACS) of persons living with HIV.

Education

PhD Health Services, University of Washington, 2009
MPH Health Policy, Health Law, Boston University, 2003
BA Political Science, Lewis And Clark College, 1998

Academic Programs and Affiliations

Recent Publications (PubMed)

The impact of military sexual trauma and gender on receipt of evidence-based medication treatment among veterans with opioid use disorder.
Beckman KL, Williams EC, Hebert P, Hawkins EJ, Littman AJ, Lehavot K. The impact of military sexual trauma and gender on receipt of evidence-based medication treatment among veterans with opioid use disorder. J Subst Abuse Treat. 2022 Mar 18:108775. doi:
Patient-centered primary care and receipt of evidence-based alcohol-related care in the national Veterans Health Administration
Edmonds AT, Rhew IC, Jones-Smith J, Chan KCG, Nelson K, Williams EC. Patient-centered primary care and receipt of evidence-based alcohol-related care in the national Veterans Health Administration. J Subst Abuse Treat. 2022 Jul;138:108709. doi: 10.1016/j.jsat.2021.108709. Epub 2022 Feb 2. PMID: 35277305.
Patient-centered primary care and receipt of evidence-based alcohol-related care in the national Veterans Health Administration.
Edmonds AT, Rhew IC, Jones-Smith J, Chan KCG, Nelson K, Williams EC. Patient-centered primary care and receipt of evidence-based alcohol-related care in the national Veterans Health Administration. J Subst Abuse Treat. 2022 Jul;138:108709. doi: 10.1016/j.
Help-Seeking Patterns and Barriers to Care Among Latino Immigrant Men with Unhealthy Alcohol Use.
Carey CM, Williams EC, Torres VN, Ornelas IJ. Help-Seeking Patterns and Barriers to Care Among Latino Immigrant Men with Unhealthy Alcohol Use. J Racial Ethn Health Disparities. 2022 Jun;9(3):1003-1011. doi: 10.1007/s40615-021-01039-y. Epub 2021 Apr 8.
Discrimination, acculturative stress, alcohol use and their associations with alcohol-related consequences among Latino immigrant men.
Torres VN, Williams EC, Ceballos RM, Donovan DM, Ornelas IJ. Discrimination, acculturative stress, alcohol use and their associations with alcohol-related consequences among Latino immigrant men. J Ethn Subst Abuse. 2022 May 28:1-16. doi: 10.1080/15332640
Integrating Routine Screening for Opioid Use Disorder into Primary Care Settings: Experiences from a National Cohort of Clinics.
Austin EJ, Briggs ES, Ferro L, Barry P, Heald A, Curran GM, Saxon AJ, Fortney J, Ratzliff AD, Williams EC. Integrating Routine Screening for Opioid Use Disorder into Primary Care Settings: Experiences from a National Cohort of Clinics. J Gen Intern Med. 2
Impact of a resilience and wellbeing program: A longitudinal cohort study of student dietitians.
Ross LJ, Mitchell LJ, Williams EC, Lynch PJ, Munro JP, Williams LT. Impact of a Resilience and Wellbeing Program: a longitudinal cohort study of student dietitians. Nurs Health Sci. 2022 May 20. doi: 10.1111/nhs.12957. [Epub ahead of print]
Patient-Reported Bothersome Symptoms Attributed to Alcohol Use Among People With and Without HIV.
Gordon KS, Becker WC, Bryant KJ, Crystal S, Maisto SA, Marshall BDL, McInnes DK, Satre DD, Williams EC, Edelman EJ, Justice AC. Patient-Reported Bothersome Symptoms Attributed to Alcohol Use Among People With and Without HIV. AIDS Behav. 2022 May 13. doi:
Longitudinal analysis of the prevalence and correlates of heavy episodic drinking and self-reported opioid use among a national cohort of patients with HIV.
Oldfield BJ, Li Y, Vickers-Smith R, Barry DT, Crystal S, Gordon KS, Kerns RD, Williams EC, Marshall BDL, Edelman EJ. Longitudinal analysis of the prevalence and correlates of heavy episodic drinking and self-reported opioid use among a national cohort of
Using practice facilitation to improve alcohol-related care in primary care: a mixed-methods pilot study protocol.
Bachrach RL, Chinman M, Rodriguez KL, Mor MK, Kraemer KL, Garfunkel CE, Williams EC. Using practice facilitation to improve alcohol-related care in primary care: a mixed-methods pilot study protocol. Addict Sci Clin Pract. 2022 Mar 14;17(1):19. doi: 10.11

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