Profile

Joanna Almeida is an Assistant Professor at Simmons School of Social Work. Prior to beginning her faculty position, she completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the Institute on Urban Health Research at Northeastern University. After earning her Masters degrees, she was a fellow at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) where she conducted public health research at the local, state and federal level. As part of her fellowship, she was assigned to the Miami-Dade County Health Department where she conducted epidemiologic research on risk factors for hepatitis C among clients of a public STD clinic, and helped to identify unique risk factors for childhood lead poisoning among recently arrived immigrants in Miami, FL. This research informed the development of lead poisoning screening guidelines for health care practitioners in Miami-Dade County. Recently, Almeida completed a National Institutes of Drug Abuse/National Institutes of Health fellowship on substance use among Latino immigrants. Almeida’s primary research is focused on understanding social factors such as social networks/social support, poverty, discrimination and neighborhood conditions that influence the deterioration of immigrants’ health after arrival in the US. Her work has been covered by the Boston Globe and by Boston Public Radio. In addition, she was invited to discuss her research findings at the Massachusetts State House Library. She holds a dual Masters in Social Work (MSW) and Masters in Public Health (MPH) from Boston University, and earned a Doctorate of Science (ScD) from the Harvard School of Public Health.