Faro Lab

Elissa Faro, Ph.D.
Associate Member, Center for Discovery and Innovation

Dr. Elissa Zoe Faro is a medical anthropologist and implementation scientist at the Center for Discovery and Innovation. Her extensive research is dedicated to enhancing healthcare delivery and improving health outcomes for underserved populations, both within the United States and on a global scale. With a unique academic background, Dr. Faro brings a rich, multidisciplinary perspective to the complex challenges within modern healthcare. She earned her Ph.D. in Classical Art and Archaeology as well as an M.A. in Anthropology from the University of Michigan, a foundation that honed her expertise in ethnographic and mixed-methods research. This distinctive training underpins her innovative approach to understanding and addressing the deep-seated sociostructural factors that influence the implementation of evidence-based health interventions.

Dr. Faro's anthropological expertise is a cornerstone of her research methodology. She applies ethnographic inquiry to identify and understand contextual determinants that impact real-world practice. This approach has been pivotal in her work on diverse topics, from implementing PrEP services in various healthcare settings to understanding the dynamics of pediatric emergency departments. At the heart of Dr. Faro's work is a commitment to closing the persistent gap between innovative and evidence-based interventions and their real-world application. She employs implementation science theories and participatory research methods to investigate how to effectively integrate new health strategies into existing clinical, public health, and community settings.

A significant portion of Dr. Faro's research portfolio is centered on maternal and child health. She has led and contributed to numerous projects aimed at improving care for women and children, with a particular emphasis on vulnerable and low-resource populations. Her work in this area has explored the use of mobile simulation programs to enhance obstetric skills in rural hospitals and analyzed disruptions to maternal and child healthcare during the COVID-19 pandemic in West Africa. Dr. Faro’s research actively confronts inequities in health by working to amplify the voices of community partners and patients. She has spearheaded projects focused on improving care for children with sickle cell disease and has contributed to a national framework for its assessment and improvement. Her work consistently highlights the importance of designing quality improvement initiatives with an explicit goal of reducing health disparities.

In her role as an Associate Member at the CDI, Dr. Faro continues to lead vital research projects. She is the contact Principal Investigator for an NIMH-funded R01 project, IMPACT, which is a hybrid implementation-effectiveness trial. This project is focused on implementing an evidence-based mental health intervention into home visiting programs for women in the perinatal period across Iowa and Indiana. Additionally, she serves as a Senior Implementation Scientist for the NIH's IMPROVE initiative, focusing on maternal health outcomes for pregnant women in the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska.

Throughout her career, Dr. Faro has been actively involved with the National Institutes of Health (NIH), including an 10-year role in the Environmental exposures on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Program. In this capacity, she has been instrumental in developing principles for participant engagement and strategies for involving research participants in novel ways. Dr. Faro has held academic appointments at prestigious institutions such as the University of Iowa's Carver College of Medicine, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Dartmouth College, and Brown University. Her extensive list of publications can be found in her MyBibliography.

Selected Publications

Faro, EZ, Jones, D., Adeagbo, M., Cho, H., Tabb Dina, K., Tandon, D., and K. Ryckman. Can an Evidence-Based Mental Health Intervention be Implemented into Preexisting Home Visiting Programs using Implementation Facilitation? Study Protocol for a Three Variable Implementation Effectiveness Context Hybrid Trial. Implementation Sci 19, 76 (2024). PMCID: PMC11556184

Faro, EZ, Taber, P., Seaman, A.T. et al. Implicit and explicit: a scoping review exploring the contribution of anthropological practice in implementation science. Implementation Sci 19, 12 (2024). PMCID: PMC10863116

Faro, EZ., Haughton, J., Lauria, ME, Miziou, E., Singer, A, Dabla, D, Gbeleou, S, Ekouevi, DE, Hirschhorn, LR, and KP Fiori. A pragmatic approach to qualitative formative evaluation of an integrated primary care program in Togo, West Africa. Global Implementation Research and Applications. September 2022.

Faro EZ, Sauder KA, Norman GS, Anderson A, Vega CV, Napp D, Huddleston KC. A Mixed-Methods Analysis to Understand the Implementation of a Multi-stakeholder Research Consortium: Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO). Journal of Clinical and Translational Science, 7(1), E198. PMCID: PMC10565193