Sarah Gutkind, Ph.D

Dr. Gutkind is an early career investigator whose research aims to understand the social and economic risk factors for substance use and substance use disorder (SUD), and to evaluate the impact of social policies and programs on substance use, SUD, and SUD treatment.  Her research interests currently focus on how policies in Medicaid, the single largest payer of SUD services, impact the delivery of SUD treatment services in the U.S. and SUD outcomes.

Dr. Gutkind received her Ph.D. in Epidemiology from Columbia University. During her doctoral training she completed a pre-doctoral fellowship in the highly selective Substance Abuse Epidemiology T32 Training Program, where she examined social and economic risk factors for substance use and SUD. This work informed her dissertation research using longitudinal data to examine the relationship between financial strain and substance use, and whether low-income tax credits from the Earned Income Tax Credit could alter this relationship. She was awarded an R36 Dissertation Grant from the National Institutes on Drug Abuse (NIDA) to support her dissertation. To expand on her research in social policies and health services, she completed a postdoctoral position in the Division of Health Policy and Economics at Weill Cornell Medical College. During her postdoctoral training she studied how social policies impact SUD treatment, with a focus on Medicaid coverage and financing policies. This work was supported in part by her pilot grant funding from the Center for Health Policy and Economics of Treatment Interventions on Substance use, HCV and HIV, examining the impact of Medicaid Section 1115 waivers on SUD treatment among adolescents and young adults.