Katherine Karriker-Jaffe

Katherine Karriker-Jaffe is an expert in behavioral health, particularly alcohol and other substance use disorders. As Senior Director, Center for Behavioral Health & Survey Methods, she conducts research on alcohol use and mental health. She is skilled in survey research methods and longitudinal and multilevel modeling.

Dr. Karriker-Jaffe's current projects include an alcohol use disorder treatment simulation modeling study focused on improving access to alcohol services across the urban-rural continuum and an epidemiological study of alcohol and drug harms to others which involved a national cross-sectional survey and a longitudinal follow-up survey with a subset of respondents. 

Dr. Karriker-Jaffe joined RTI in 2020. Her survey research experience includes conducting the 2015 and 2020 U.S. National Alcohol Surveys and the 2015 U.S. National Alcohol’s Harm to Others Survey and the 2023 U.S. Alcohol and Drug Harm to Others Survey. Her recent multilevel studies have examined alcohol control policies, neighborhood factors, peer networks, and family influences on alcohol outcomes including alcohol use patterns, alcohol use disorder, recovery, and secondhand harms from other people’s drinking. Other recent projects have focused on substance use and mental health, including suicide.

Dr. Karriker-Jaffe is a member of the Research Society on Alcohol, the Kettil Bruun Society, and the American Public Health Association. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the School of Public Health, University of California Berkeley, where she also taught a course on Social & Behavioral Health Research: Introduction to Survey Methods for several years.