Alexandra Collins
Research/Areas of Interest
substance use; harm reduction; housing; built environment and health; space-based stigma; gender and drug use; qualitative methods
Education
- Doctor of Philosophy, Simon Fraser University, CAN, 2020
- Master of Science, Simon Fraser University, CAN, 2015
- Bachelor of Arts, University of Connecticut, USA, 2013
Biography
Alexandra (Alex) Collins is a medical social scientist and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Community Health, and holds an Adjunct Assistant Professor position at the Brown University School of Public Health. Dr. Collins uses community-engaged qualitative and ethnographic methods to examine social, structural, and environmental factors that impact people who use drugs across drug use risk environments, with a focus on how these intersect across social locations to shape drug use practices and healthcare access. She is particularly interested in the role of housing, criminalization, and built environmental factors at impacting access to harm reduction interventions; the impact of the changing drug supply on drug use practices and health outcomes; gendered experiences of drug use and overdose risk; and the implementation and effectiveness of harm reduction and treatment interventions.
Before joining Tufts, she was an Assistant Professor at Brown University. She received a BA in Anthropology and French from the University of Connecticut, and an MSc and PhD in Health Sciences from Simon Fraser University in Canada. During graduate school she conducted fieldwork in Sierra Leone and Canada and worked at the British Columbia Centre on Substance Use and the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS. She is also an Associate Editor for the International Journal of Drug Policy.
Before joining Tufts, she was an Assistant Professor at Brown University. She received a BA in Anthropology and French from the University of Connecticut, and an MSc and PhD in Health Sciences from Simon Fraser University in Canada. During graduate school she conducted fieldwork in Sierra Leone and Canada and worked at the British Columbia Centre on Substance Use and the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS. She is also an Associate Editor for the International Journal of Drug Policy.