For our last SPIRIT speaker of the fall

2024 semester, we’re excited to invite

Josh Barocas fromUniversity of Colorado School of Medicine.

Dr. Barocas will be presenting on “Stigma, Policies, and Misperceptions: Unpacking the Social and Political Determinants that are Worsening the Homelessness Crisis in the US”.

Dr. Barocas is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine (CUSOM) and an infectious diseases physician at Denver Health, Colorado’s largest safety net hospital. He lead an interdisciplinary research program that is involved in large clinical trials, epidemiologic research, and simulation modeling with the goal of improving health outcomes among marginalized populations such as people experiencing homelessness. His research program focuses on outcomes related to substance use disorders and infectious diseases and his work has led to clinical and policy changes at nearly every level. His lab is also embedded within the Social Determinants of Health and Disparities Modeling Unit at CUSOM, of which he is the Director. This Unit provides infrastructure for a cadre of investigators on campus and connects us with community organizations such as Colorado Coalition for the Homeless. He has served as Director of the Health Economics and Modeling Core for the Massachusetts HEALing Communities Study, an NIH-funded multi- institutional grant to significantly reduce overdose deaths. Apart from his research, he served as an infectious diseases consultant for Boston Health Care for the Homeless during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic and as an advisor to the Mayor of Denver on the homelessness crisis. In his role in Boston, he helped establish the isolation and quarantine sites and field hospitals that protected Boston’s homeless population and advised other cities including New York and San Francisco. His work has appeared in prominent journals including the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, Nature, and Annals of Internal Medicine.