Kym Ahrens, MD, MPH
Co-Investigator

Pronouns: she/her
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Dr. Ahrens’ research focuses on intervention development, design, and testing interventions to promote resilience and reduce risk among adolescent and young adult populations. She uses mixed community and youth-engaged methods as well as qualitative and quantitative methods. She primarily works with youth involved in foster and juvenile legal systems and the systems that serve these youth, but has also performed youth/community engaged work in other populations including transgender and non-binary adolescents and young adults. In addition to her academic roles, Dr. Ahrens is Medical Director of the Washington State Department of Children, Youth, and Families Juvenile Rehabilitation system. In this role she performs clinical work with adolescents and young adults up to age 25 years that includes medications for opioid use disorder. Her duties in this role also include policy development around critical youth outcomes such as opioid and overdose prevention.