Director of ISSUP
Zili Sloboda, currently is the President of Applied Prevention Science International. She was trained in medical sociology at New York University and in mental health and epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. The majority of her research has been related to the delivery of health-related services to youth and adults and epidemiology. She is an expert on the prevention of substance use by adolescents and has broad experience in research related to at-risk youth and to the evaluation of treatment and prevention programs.
She has served on the faculties of Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, the University of Illinois School of Public Health, and until 2009, The University of Akron. Prior to this last position, Dr. Sloboda worked for twelve years at the National Institute on Drug Abuse in several capacities, finally as the Director of the Division of Epidemiology and Prevention Research. This Division’s focus was on the development and support of national research programs in HIV/AIDS epidemiology and prevention and drug abuse epidemiology and prevention and at the time had the responsibility for several large national epidemiologic and treatment data systems. While at NIDA she and her staff organized the International Epidemiology Work Group and the International HIV Prevention Network.
She was a founder of the U.S. and E.U. Societies for Prevention Research and is well-published in the area of drug abuse epidemiology and drug use prevention. Her three major books include the Handbook of Drug Abuse Prevention, Epidemiology of Drug Abuse, and Defining Prevention Science. In addition, she has a long standing commitment to the dissemination of evidence-based programming and the advancement of Translation I and II research through work with the Society for Prevention Research (SPR) and current work with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to develop international standards for drug use prevention based on research evidence and training workshops for policy makers. Her current focus is on developing and testing curricula (Universal Prevention Curriculum) for the training and licensing of an international cadre of prevention coordinators and specialists in collaboration with The Colombo Plan’s International Centre for Certification and Education of Addictions Professionals and with CICAD and the International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs Bureau of the U.S. Department of State. Through this program prevention professionals from Asia, Africa, Latin America, the United States, Canada, and Europe will be trained and licensed to deliver evidence-based substance use prevention interventions.
She has also received several commendations for her work from the National Institutes of Health, the US Society for Prevention Research and the EU Society for Prevention Research.