Laura Salazar
Distinguished University Professor Health Policy & Behavioral Sciences- Biography
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Dr. Laura F. Salazar is a 2nd Century scholar who is part of the Health Justice cluster. A primary focus of this cluster is to explore the social determinants of health, and the role of syndemics (multiple adverse conditions that act synergistically) in individual and community health.
Dr. Salazar focuses her research efforts on understanding and improving significant inequalities in HIV experienced by racial, sexual and gender minority populations. She has also focused her efforts on the intersecting epidemic of violence against women. Her research in this area has examined mediating mechanisms that explain the connection between violence and HIV outcomes, identifying the socio-ecological risk and protective factors related to sexual violence perpetration as well as determining the effectiveness of a range of intervention approaches in reducing intimate partner violence, teen dating violence and sexual violence.
Her web-based program (RealConsent) was found to be effective in preventing sexual violence perpetration among male college students and is listed on the Center’s for Disease Control and Prevention’s website as an evidence-based effective primary prevention program.
Dr. Salazar earned her Ph.D. in Community Psychology from Georgia State University’s Department of Psychology in 2001. She subsequently completed a NRSA postdoctoral fellowship in HIV/AIDS at Emory University, School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry. She was a member of the faculty at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health from 2004-2011.
Her intervention research has been funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health and includes the use of media and web-based approaches to expand the reach of health promotion. She has numerous publications in peer reviewed journals and is a co-author of two public health textbooks: Research Methods in Health Promotion and Health Behavior Theory for Public Health: Principles, Foundations and Applications.