Roles:
- Assistant Professor, The Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing
- Former Fellow, Research Education Institute for Diverse Scholars (REIDS)
Contact:
Biography:
Kamila Alexander's research focuses on prevention of sexual health outcome disparities and the complex roles that structural determinants such as intimate partner violence, societal gender expectations, and limited economic opportunities play in the experience of intimate human relationships. Using health equity and social justice lenses, she aims to learn why men and women make particular sexual decisions and convey those decisions to their emotional partners, how we can promote safe relationships, and how we might expand current prevention efforts to mitigate intimate partner violence, unintended pregnancies, and sexually transmitted infections including HIV. Her research stems from over 10 years of public health clinical practice in domestic and international communities living at the margins of society. Dr. Alexander has received funding to conduct research investigations through the National Institutes of Health, American Nurses Foundation, Sigma Theta Tau International, and the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality. She earned her PhD in nursing science from the University of Pennsylvania, where her dissertation focused on emotional and structural drivers of sexual decision-making among young women in Baltimore. Her goals are to not only promote health and prevent morbidities but to lead and create investigations that affect practice and policy on a global scale.
Selected Publications:
Alexander, K.A., Dovydaitis, T., Beacham, B., Bohinski, J., Brawner, B., Clements, C., Everett, J., Gomes, M., Harner, H., McDonald, C., Pinkston, E., Sommers, M. (2011) Learning health equity frameworks within a community of scholars. Journal of Nursing Education. 50(10), 569-574. doi: 10.3928/01484834- 20110630-05.
Brawner, B. M., Davis, Z. M., Fannin, E. F., & Alexander, K. A. (2012) Clinical depression and condom use attitudes and beliefs among African American adolescent females. Journal of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care, 23(3), 184-194. doi:10.1016/j.jana.2011.03.005.
Alexander, K.A., Coleman, C.L., Deatrick, J.A., Jemmott, L.S. (2012) Moving beyond safe sex to women-controlled safe sex: A concept analysis. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 68(8), 1858-1869. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2648.2011.05881.x
Areas of Expertise:
- Sexuality and sexual safety among black emerging adult women
- HIV/STI risk reduction for African American young men
- Longitudinal study of women at high risk for HIV to inform HIV vaccine trial participation
