Chelsea L. Shover, PhD
Chelsea L. Shover, PhD is an epidemiologist and Assistant Professor-in-Residence at the University of California Los Angeles School of Medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research. She completed her PhD in Epidemiology at the University of California Los Angeles and a postdoctoral fellowship in Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. Her research focuses on substance use, infectious disease, and their shared social and structural risk factors. Her 2019 study on the changed association between cannabis laws and opioid overdose mortality was named among that year’s top 10 Proceeding of the National Academy of Science papers contributing to public understanding of science. She co-authored a report published in The Lancet: “Responding to the opioid crisis in North America and beyond: recommendations of the Stanford–Lancet Commission.” Alongside her academic work, she has served as an epidemiologist in government and non-profit positions, most recently as Supervising Epidemiologist for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health’s COVID-19 response in homeless shelters and encampments. Supported by a Career Development Award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, her lab’s current projects include methods to use rapidly available overdose data to inform public health policy, as well as community-based implementation of harm reduction strategies. Using medical examiner data, her team has identified key local drug supply changes (i.e., fentanyl’s westward spread; xylazine’s increasing presence in various markets) and then worked with policymakers and community organizations to improve on-the-ground overdose prevention.