School of Medicine

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Shikhar Shrestha

Shikhar Shrestha

Assistant Professor, Public Health and Community Medicine
Shikhar Shrestha

Full Profile

Career Highlights / Publications Research Courses / Teaching Activities

Research/Areas of Interest

My research focuses on understanding how place and community shape health, particularly in relation to substance use and overdose. I use spatial methods to study overlapping epidemics like HIV, hepatitis C, and opioid use, and to identify gaps in access to treatment and harm reduction services. I work closely with public health partners, EMS providers, and community organizations to develop practical tools that improve overdose surveillance, response, and prevention. My projects range from mapping vulnerability to the opioid crisis in different states to testing new methods for detecting overdose spikes and improving classification of opioid-related incidents using machine learning. I also collaborate with colleagues across universities to study opioid use patterns and inform public health strategies. Currently, I lead an NIH-funded study on xylazine, a drug increasingly found in the drug supply, to better understand its role in severe skin infections among people who inject drugs. My goal is to generate evidence that supports more effective and equitable public health interventions.

Education

  • Doctor of Philosophy, Univ Of New Mexico, USA, 2019
  • Master of Science, Univ Of New Mexico, USA, 2015
  • Bachelor of Pharmacy, Katmandu University-Nepal, NPL, 2011

Biography

Dr. Shrestha is an Assistant Professor with the Department of Public Health and Community Medicine at the Tufts University School of Medicine. His research focuses on the study of the opioid crisis with an emphasis on prenatal opioid exposure and associated health outcomes, opioid overdose events, and harm reduction. He received his Ph.D. from the University of New Mexico in 2019 - his dissertation research examined post-discharge healthcare utilization in infants with neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome. Dr. Shrestha's current research primarily focuses on the nexus of accessibility and acceptability of substance use treatment using Geographics Information Systems.