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Kristen A. Stafford, PhD, MPH

Academic Title:

Associate Professor

Primary Appointment:

Epidemiology & Public Health

Administrative Title:

Technical Deputy Director for CIHEB

Location:

725 W. Lombard Street, IHV N348

Phone (Primary):

(410) 706-6230

Education and Training

  • Notre Dame of Maryland University, BA, Psychology, 1995
  • Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, MPH, Health Policy & Management, 2004
  • University of Maryland School of Medicine, PhD, Epidemiology, 2015

 

 

Biosketch

Dr. Stafford is an infectious disease epidemiologist with 25 years of experience in the design, implementation, and evaluation of domestic and international HIV care and treatment programs. Domestically she directly implemented Ryan White funded programs as well as served as the Deputy Program Manager and Manager of the Continuous Quality Improvement Program for the Ryan White Part A Program for the Baltimore EMA.

Internationally, she served for six years as Director of the Outcomes and Evaluation Program at the University of Maryland School of Medicine Institute of Human Virology for an eight country, 240 clinic, 700,000 patient HIV care and treatment program funded through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. Dr. Stafford has designed and implemented multi-country education and training programs for the integration of monitoring and evaluation and continuous quality improvement programs into HIV programs and served as co-lead author for the WHO guide to implementing quality improvement programs in resource-limited settings.

Dr. Stafford’s methodological expertise includes complex study design, analytical methods used evaluate patient and program outcomes, immunologic response to antiviral therapy among HIV infected patients, treatment toxicity, retention in the care cascade, and large cohort development and analysis. Her primary research focuses on the epidemiology of aging in the presence of HIV infection and how age is associated with differences in HIV treatment outcomes in resource limited settings with particular focus on immune system recovery and the development of treatment related toxicity and side effects.

Dr. Stafford has expertise in advanced epidemiological methods for infectious disease research and serves as the Director of Clinical Research Education Programs in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health.  She is the Associate Director of the Center for International Health, Education, and Biosecurity at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

Research/Clinical Keywords

infectious diseases; HIV and aging; non-AIDS defining cancers, women's health; HIV associated non-AIDS conditions; Global Health

Highlighted Publications

Stafford KA, Boutin M, Evans SR, Harris AD. Difficulties in demonstrating superiority of an antibiotic for multidrug-resistant bacteria in nonrandomized studies. Clin Infect Dis. 2014;59(8):1142-1147.

Riedel DJ, Cox ER, Stafford KA, Gilliam BL. Clinical presentation and outcomes of prostate cancer in an urban cohort of predominantly african american, human immunodeficiency virus-infected patients. Urology. 2015;85(2):415-422.

Wehman, B, Stafford, KA, Bittle, GJ,  Kon, ZN, Evans, CF, Rajagopal, K, Pietris, N, Kaushal, S, Griffith, BP. Modern Outcomes of Mechanical Circulatory Support as a Bridge To Pediatric Heart Transplantation. Ann Thorac Surg. 2016 Jun;101(6):2321-7.

Fantry, LE, Nowak, RG, Fisher LH, Cullen NR, Yimgang, DP, Stafford, KA, Kang, M, Innis, EK, Riner, A, Wang, EW, Charurat, ME. Colonscopy Findings in HIV-infected Men and Women from an Urban US Cohort Compared with Non-HIV-Infected Men and Women. AIDS Res Hum Retroviruses. 2016 Jul 21.

Husson, J, Stafford, KA, Bromberg, J, Haririan, A, Davis, C, Sparkes, T, Redfield, R, Amoroso, A. Association between Duration of HIV-1 Viral Suppression Prior to Renal Transplantation and Acute Cellular Rejection. Am J Transplant. 2016 Jul 26.

Stafford KA, Magder LS, Hungerford LL, Guralnik JM, El-Kamary SS, Baumgarten M, Redfield RR. Immunologic response to antiretroviral therapy by age among treatment-naive patients in Sub-Saharan Africa. AIDS. 2018 Jan 2;32(1):25-34.

Stafford KA, Nganga LW, Tulli T, Foreit KG. Factors associated with outcomes of pre-ART HIV care. J Int Assoc Provid AIDS Care.  2018 March(17):1-7.

Al Kibria GM, Swasey K, Angela KC, Mirbolouk M, Sakib M, Sharmeen A, Chadni MJ, Stafford KA. Estimated prevalence of hypertension in Nepal following application of the 2017 ACC/AHA guideline. JAMA Network Open. 2018 Jul 6;1(3)

Riedel DJ, Stafford KA, Memiah P, Coker M, Baribwira C, Sebeza J, Karorero E, Nsanzimana S, Morales F, Redfield RR. Patient-level outcomes and virologic suppression rates in HIV-infected patients receiving antiretroviral therapy in Rwanda. International Journal of STD & AIDS 2018 Aug;29(9):861-872. 

Andronescu L, Zulu PM, Jackson SS, Hachaambwa L, Claassen CW, Stafford KA. The association between gender and HIV viral suppression on third-line therapy in Zambia: a retrospective cohort study. International Journal of STD & AIDS. 2019 Apr;30(5):453-459

O'Hara LM, Blanco N, Leekha S, Stafford KA, Slobogean GP, Ludeman E, Harris AD. Design, implementation, and analysis considerations for cluster-randomized trials in infection control and hospital epidemiology: A systematic review. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol. 2019 Jun;40(6):686-692.

Additional Publication Citations

Awards and Affiliations

2013 Otani Award for superior academic performance and consistent service and support to the overall goals of GPILS by improving the quality of academic studies among fellow students. University of Maryland School of Medicine - Graduate Program in Life Sciences

2013 Trudy Bush Award for Outstanding Research in Women’s Health and Epidemiology. University of Maryland School of Medicine - Department of Epidemiology and Public Health