Stephanie Staras, PhD, MSPH

Dr. Stephanie Staras, MSPH, PhD is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Outcomes and Policy within the College of Medicine and a faculty member of the Institute for Child Health Policy at the University of Florida. Dr. Staras’ research program focuses on preventing sexually transmitted infections and related diseases. A main focus of her work is reducing human papillomavirus (HPV)-related cancer cases and disparities by studying risk factors and designing parent- and provider-targeted interventions to improve HPV vaccination rates. She is currently has an NCI-funded R21 to: (1) enhance a health information technology (HIT) system to encourage provider and clinic use, and (2) test the feasibility of real-world implementation within six clinics selected from the OneFlorida Cancer Control Network: a Patient-Centered Clinical Research Network Partner (PCORnet). The R21 project builds on a Society of Adolescent Medicine funded feasibility test of a multi-component intervention to improve HPV vaccination rates using a parent-targeted postcard campaign and the original in-clinic HIT system. Dr. Staras also lead data collection for the formative work of the intervention by examining predictors of HPV vaccine initiation with mail- and phone-based behavioral surveys among Florida Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program populations including approximately 7,500 parents of adolescents, 3,000 adolescents, and 900 Medicaid providers