Assistant Professor of Family Medicine, Assistant Professor of Health Services, Policy and Practice (Research)

Overview

Alicia Cohen, MD, MSc, FAAFP is an Assistant Professor of Family Medicine and Health Services, Policy, and Practice, and a Core Investigator at the VA Providence Healthcare System's Transformative Health Systems Research to Improve Veteran Equity and Independence (THRIVE) Center of Innovation (COIN). Her research aims to understand and improve patient, community, health system, and structural-level processes to identify and address social risks and social needs in clinical settings, with a particular focus on food insecurity. She is currently a VA Career Development Awardee using mixed methods and implementation science to develop and evaluate novel strategies to optimize screening and referral processes for connecting Veterans experiencing food insecurity with VA and community resources. Findings from her work have been cited in Congressional testimony on Veteran and military hunger. She also co-leads on a national VA social needs screening and referral initiative, “Assessing Circumstances and Offering Resources for Needs” (ACORN). Dr. Cohen practices primary care at the VA Providence’s Homeless clinic and Women’s Health clinic.

She received her MD from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She completed her Family Medicine training at the UCSF-Santa Rosa Family Medicine Residency followed by an Integrative Medicine Fellowship at the University of Michigan. She was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Clinical Scholar at the University of Michigan during which time she earned a master’s degree in Health and Health Care Research. Dr. Cohen subsequently completed an Advanced Health Services Research & Development Fellowship at the VA Ann Arbor Center for Clinical Management Research and VA Providence Center of Innovation in Long Term Services and Supports. Dr. Cohen served as a 2022-2024 James C. Puffer/American Board of Family Medicine Fellow with the National Academy of Medicine, and is currently a VA Fellow on the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Roundtable on the Promotion of Health Equity.

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