Departmental Affiliations
Center & Institute Affiliations
Contact Info
Research Interests
Adolescent health; Sexual & reproductive health; Health care utilization; Male health
Additional Links
Experiences & Accomplishments
Dr. Marcell is a Professor in the School of Medicine and in the Department of Population, Family & Reproductive Health. His primary interests include adolescent health with special emphases on sexual and reproductive health, health care utilization, and male health. A major focus of Dr. Marcell’s research is to improve adolescent sexual and reproductive health and access to care, especially for young males, from patient and provider perspectives, conducting interdisciplinary research that integrates behavioral science, health services research, and public health practice.
He has been continuously funded since 2003 by agencies, including the NIH, CDC, and Office of Population Affairs. He received funding from the NICHD for a career development award (K23HD47457) that focused on examining “Teen Males’ Reproductive Health Needs and Barriers to Care”. He is currently funded by the NIH (NICHD R01HD109141) to examine the efficacy of Health-E You, a pre-visit mobile health app for sexually active male adolescent patients to promote sexual and reproductive health care receipt in a randomized control trial where currently no such strategy exists. He is currently funded by the NIH (NICHD R21HD097453) to the examine the acceptability, feasibility, and preliminary efficacy of a text messaging program, text4FATHER, to increase expectant fathers’ infant engagement during their partner’s pregnancy through early infancy. He was just recently funded to trial text4FATHER nationally by recruiting first-time fathers via social media. He is also currently funded by the AHRQ (1R03HS029351-01) and the MCHB (1R42MC49146-01-00) to examine longitudinal well-visits and receipt of preventive care by gender using the NIH NEXT longitudinal secondary dataset. He also directs www.Y2CONNECT.org, a comprehensive youth resource guide for Baltimore City that has been disseminated for use by the Boston City and Duval County Public School Systems.
Clinically, he is the medical director of adolescent medicine services at the Center for Adolescent & Young Adult Health at the Hopkins Harriet Lane Clinic. He has directed the Title X Clinical Program for more than 19 years. He led the first men’s health updates to the nation’s Title X Clinical Guidelines that was published by the Office of Population Affairs and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the 2014 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report entitled Providing Quality Family Planning Services.
He has experience using mixed methodologies, including focus groups, in-depth interviewing, consensus-building techniques, systematic reviews and literature synthesis, and prospective and person-based longitudinal data analysis using large datasets, including the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health, the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, the National Ambulatory Medical Care Surveys, the National Survey of Adolescent Males, and the National Survey of Family Growth. He has extensive experience conducting trainings with health professionals at all levels and clinical staff on engaging men in family planning and sexual and reproductive health care.
Dr. Marcell is Faculty Sponsor for the School's Certificate in Adolescent Health: https://www.jhsph.edu/academics/certificate-programs/certificates-for-hopkins-and-non-degree-students/adolescent-health.html
He is the Lead Instructor for the course:
Masculinity, Sexual Behavior & Health: Adolescence & beyond (380.720.01): https://www.jhsph.edu/courses/list/?keyword=380.720
He has received multiple teaching excellence awards for his course at the Bloomberg School of Public Health on Masculinity, Sexual Behavior & Health: Adolescence & beyond.
Dr. Marcell is Faculty in the Division of Adolescent/Young Adult Medicine that is a a multi-disciplinary training program for fellows in medicine, nursing, social work, nutrition and psychology. Adolescent Medicine and Health Grand Rounds occur each Friday morning from 9-12 either in-person at 200 N. Wolfe St (Rubinstein Bldg), 2nd Floor Main Conference Room (or virtually). Any person with an interest in adolescent health is welcome to participate in any of its educational activities. Contact Maria Curry to get added to listserve. More general information about this program can be found at https://jhucayah.org/
Honors & Awards
Teaching Excellence, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Term 2 | 2010-11, 2011-12, 2013-14, 2014-15, 2018-19, 2019-20, 2020–21, 2022–23 for Masculinity, Sexual Behavior & Health: Adolescence & beyond
Select Publications
Selected publications from the last few years:
Marcell AV, Gibbs S, Choiriyyah I, Sonenstein FL, Astone N, Pleck JH, Dariotis J. National Needs of Family Planning Among US Men Aged 15 to 44 Years. American Journal of Public Health. 2016;106(4):733-9.
Marcell AV, Morgan AR, Sanders R, Lunardi N, Pilgrim NA, Jennings JM, Page KR, Loosier PS, Dittus PJ. The socio-ecology of sexual and reproductive health care use among young urban minority males. Journal of Adolescent Health. 2017;60(4):402-410.
Marcell AV, Gibbs S, Pilgrim NA, Page KR, Arrington-Sanders R, Jennings J, Loosier PS, Dittus PJ. Sexual and reproductive health care receipt among young males aged 15-24. J Adolescent Health. 2018;62(4):382-389. PMID: 29128296 PMCID: PMC6080721
Lindberg LD, Maddow-Zimet I, Marcell AV. Prevalence of sexual initiation before age 13 in the U.S. among male adolescents and young adults. JAMA Pediatrics. 2019;173(6):553-560. PMID: 30958512 PMC6547075
Marcell AV, Johnson SB, Nelson T, Labrique AB, Van Eck K, Skelton S, Aqil A, Gibson D. Protocol for the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary efficacy trial of text4FATHER for improving underserved fathers’ involvement in infant care. Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved. 2021;32(3):1110-1135 PMID: 34421016 PMCID: PMC8938706