Kelly M. Doran, MD

I am an emergency physician and faculty member in the Ronald O. Perelman Department of Emergency Medicine and the Department of Population Health, where I co-direct the Health x Housing Lab. My research focuses on the intersections between housing and health.

Currently I am the principal investigator for two studies funded by the National Institutes of Health that examine the intersection of housing and substance use. One community-partnered study will test strategies for implementation of overdose prevention interventions in permanent supportive housing buildings across New York. The second study is a mixed methods examination of substance use and other health impacts of New York City’s protective hoteling initiative for people experiencing homelessness during the COVID-19 pandemic. In other recent projects I have examined a peer-led overdose prevention initiative in emergency departments; prediction and prevention of homelessness amongst emergency department patients; and health-related impacts of an unconditional cash transfer program.

I have given invited presentations on housing and other social determinants of health at the National Academies of Science and the White House. My work has been published in journals including the New England Journal of Medicine, the American Journal of Public Health, and Health Affairs. A guiding principle of my research is the importance of cross-disciplinary partnerships, including with community and governmental partners. Previously, I served as an advisor to the New York State Department of Health on novel efforts to use Medicaid to fund supportive housing.

I enjoy teaching and mentoring the next generation of researchers and practitioners focused on social determinants of health, and I was co-editor of the first textbook on the growing field of social emergency medicine, Social Emergency Medicine: Principles and Practice.

My interest in homelessness began while working at a student-run homeless shelter as an undergraduate at Harvard College. I attended medical school at the University of Michigan, completed a residency in emergency medicine at NYU-Bellevue, and earned a master’s degree in health sciences as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar at Yale University. I continue to work clinically as an emergency physician at NYC Health + Hospitals / Bellevue Hospital in New York City, where my firsthand experience working with patients informs my research.