Departmental Affiliations
Research Interests
HIV/AIDS policy, prevention and care; COVID-19; economic evaluation; implementation science; health equity; substance use; harm reduction
Additional Links
Experiences & Accomplishments
Dr. Holtgrave currently serves as a Special Advisor to the Commissioner of the New York State Department of Health, where he also serves on the Commissioner's Executive Leadership Team for the Department. He focuses largely on substance use policy matters.
From 2022 to 2024, Dr. Holtgrave served in the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (most recently serving as the Senior Associate Director, a post for which his portfolio spanned public health, prevention, and translational research aspects of substance use policy).
He is appointed as an Adjunct Professor with the Department of Health, Behavior and Society at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (the Department he Chaired from 2005 to 2018 when employed full time at Hopkins, and in which he served as the Inaugural Health, Behavior and Society Professor).
From 2018 to 2022, he was the Dean, SUNY Distinguished Professor, and SUNY Empire Innovation Professor at the School of Public Health, University at Albany, State University of New York. During this time he worked intensively on COVID-19 projects conducted in partnership between SUNY and the New York State Department of Health. He is now SUNY Distinguished Professor Emeritus.
Dr. Holtgrave's more than three decades of research has focused heavily on the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of a variety of HIV prevention and care interventions (including the provision of housing as a structural HIV/AIDS intervention), and the relationship of the findings of these studies to HIV prevention policy making. His scholarly works include over 350 professional publications. He has served on an Institute of Medicine panel charged with recommending methods to improve the public financing and delivery of HIV care in the United States. Dr. Holtgrave has also previously served as the Director of the Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention -- Intervention Research & Support at the U.S. Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and as Vice-Chair of the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Health Education at the Emory University Rollins School of Public Health. During President Barack Obama's Administration, Dr. Holtgrave served as a member and then Vice-Chair of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA).
Throughout his career, Dr. Holtgrave has focused on bringing the highest quality scientific evidence to bear on urgent public health programmatic and policy decisions. This is evidenced, for example, by his translational work in addressing HIV-related health inequities in the U.S., rapid research to inform COVID-19 clinical decision making, and the development of an evidence-based national response plan to confront the emerging challenge of fentanyl adulterated by xylazine.
Honors & Awards
SUNY Distinguished Professor (Awarded Highest Academic Rank in the State University of New York System, 2019)
Inaugural Health, Behavior and Society Professor, JHSPH (Endowed Professorship, 2017-2018)
Member and Vice-Chair, Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (Membership terms 2010-2016)
Partnership Award, National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors, 2014
The Golden Apple Award, and The Johns Hopkins University Alumni Association Excellence in Teaching Award, 2014
Positive Leadership Award, National Association of People with AIDS, 2011
POZ 100 AIDS Fighters, POZ Magazine, 2010
Member, Delta Omega Honorary Public Health Society, 2006
Student Government Association Professor of the Year, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, 2005
Woodruff Leadership Academy Fellow, Woodruff Health Sciences Center, Emory University, 2004
C. Everett Koop National Health Award, The Health Project, 1996
Select Publications
The following five publications give a sampling of Dr Holtgrave's work on HIV, COVID-19, substance use, and health equity over the past three decades:
Holtgrave DR, Barranco MA, Tesoriero JM, Blog DS, Rosenberg ES. Assessing racial and ethnic disparities using a COVID-19 outcomes continuum for New York State. Annals of Epidemiology 2020;48:9-14.
Eli S. Rosenberg, Elizabeth M. Dufort, Tomoko Udo, Larissa A. Wilberschied, Jessica Kumar, James Tesoriero, Patti Weinberg, James Kirkwood, Alison Muse, Jack DeHovitz, Debra S. Blog, Brad Hutton, David R. Holtgrave, Howard A. Zucker. Association of treatment with hydroxychloroquine or azithromycin with in-hospital mortality in patients with COVID-19 in New York State. Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) 2020;323:2493-2503.
Gupta R, Holtgrave DR, Ashburn MA. Xylazine - medical and public health imperatives. New England Journal of Medicine 2023;388(24):2209-2212.
Bonacci RA, Bradley H, Rosenberg ES, Holtgrave DR. Evaluating HIV transmission rates for the US National HIV/AIDS Strategy, 2010-2015. Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes (JAIDS) 2019;82:e37-e39.
Marrazzo JM, Del Rio C, Holtgrave DR, et al. HIV prevention in clinical care settings: 2014 recommendations of the International Antiviral Society-USA Panel. Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) 2014;312(4):390-409.