Sarah Peitzmeier, PhD, MSPH
Assistant Professor
Dr. Peitzmeier is a mixed-methods researcher focused on sexual health and violence in marginalized populations. She received in her MSPH in 2012 and her PhD in 2017 from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Her HIV-focused work examines how violence and human rights violations affect HIV risk in key populations, including sex workers, gay and bisexual men, transgender women, and people who use drugs globally. Her work has included research on sexual violence against gay and bisexual men and transgender women in Mongolia and HIV surveillance in female sex workers and men who have sex with men in the Gambia. Her NIDA-funded dissertation examined how polyvictimization, or experiencing multiple types of violence, affects sexual and drug-related HIV risk in a sample of Russian sex workers.
Beyond HIV, Sarah also works on broader sexual health and violence issues in LGBT and other marginalized populations. In particular, she has published quantitative and qualitative work on cervical cancer screening disparities in transmasculine populations and was a co-investigator on a PCORI-funded clinical trial of alternative screening methodologies in this population. She has also investigated sexual orientation disparities in HPV vaccination, health impacts of chest binding in transmasculine individuals, and intimate partner violence victimization and perpetration in adolescents. Her ongoing work in this area is focused on better understanding and screening for intimate partner violence in transgender populations.