Thomas J. Stopka

Dr. Stopka is an Assistant Professor with the Department of Public Health and Community Medicine at the Tufts University School of Medicine. His major research interests are in the area of infectious disease epidemiology and prevention, geographic information systems (GIS), spatial epidemiology, health disparities, and global health. Through his research, Dr. Stopka explores the interconnectedness of substance use and misuse, social and behavioral risk factors, and infectious disease outcomes among high-risk, and often hidden populations through community-engaged, interdisciplinary, multi-methods, applied epidemiological research studies. He is currently the PI of seven studies funded by Tufts CTSI, the Lifespan/Tufts/Brown Center for AIDS Research (CFAR), the NIH, the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS (CIRA)-CFAR, The Tufts Institute for Innovation, and the MAC AIDS Fund. Through these studies, he is working to identify and characterize hotspot clusters of disease (HIV, HCV, STIs) among people who inject drugs (PWID) and MSM to pinpoint the most high risk neighborhoods for disease transmission, and to determine individual, community, and structural factors associated disease clusters. He is also studying the HIV care continuum in nine Southern New England cities, access to HIV and clinical care among high-risk populations, prescription drug monitoring programs in New England, and HCV treatment readiness among young PWID. Through these studies, Dr. Stopka aims to inform clinical and translational health policy decisions and interventions on the local, state, and national level.