Aisha Langford, MPH, PhD

As an assistant professor in NYU’s School of Medicine, Department of Population Health, I study how health communication can improve individual decision making and reduce population health disparities for conditions or behaviors that lead to preventable mortality and morbidity. I received my BA in English from the University of Virginia, MPH in Behavioral Science from Saint Louis University, and PhD in Health Behavior and Health Education from the University of Michigan. 

Historically, I have done work in cancer prevention and clinical trial participation in community-based settings. My research has expanded to include cardiovascular disease broadly, with a particular interest in hypertension-related decision making. In August 2018, I received a 5-year career development award from the NIH/National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) to explore patient and clinician preferences for hypertension management. Prior to receiving my career development award, I obtained a 2-year diversity supplement from the NIH/National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) to explore study teams’ awareness and use of recruitment support tools. 

I serve as co-director of the NYU Clinical and Translational Science Institute's (CTSI) Recruitment and Retention Unit (RRU). In this role, I provide consultations to study teams on ways to enhance recruitment and retention across various clinical trials. My efforts with the CTSI RRU build upon my dissertation research, which focused on minority enrollment in clinical trials. A notable finding from my dissertation research was that minorities are willing to participate in clinical trials and to join a university-based registry when eligible and explicitly invited.

I am an active member of the Society for Medical Decision Making (SMDM) and the Society of Behavioral Medicine (SBM). For SMDM, I serve on the nominations committee. For SBM, I serve as chair of the Health Decision Making special interest group. I also serve as an associate editor for Clinical Trials: The Journal of the Society for Clinical Trials.