Associate Professor of Epidemiology

Dr. Howe is an Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology within the Brown University School of Public Health. She serves as an Editor for the American Journal of Epidemiology. Dr. Howe has an appointment with Brown's Center for Epidemiologic Research and is also a member of the Providence/Boston Center for AIDS Research. 

Prior to joining the faculty at Brown, Dr. Howe obtained an MPH in Epidemiology from the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. She received her PhD in Epidemiology as well as an MHS in Biostatistics from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dr. Howe completed postdoctoral training in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health.

Dr. Howe conducts research in the areas of methods, infectious diseases, and health disparities. Her methodologically focused research interests include improving understanding of potential sources of bias as well as better characterizing, adapting, and illustrating the use of advanced quantitative methods to promote accurate inference in the published public health and biomedical literature. Her applied work often focuses on using state-of-the-art approaches to identify the best targets for effective interventions to improve HIV-related population health and to reduce persistent health disparities, especially HIV-related health disparities. 

Selected Publications:

Silva JBB, Howe CJ, Jackson JW, Bardenheier BH, Riester M, van Aalst R, Loiacono MM, and Zullo AR. Geospatial Distribution of Racial Disparities in Influenza Vaccine Use in Nursing Homes. Journal of the American Medical Directors Association. In Press.  

Howe CJ, Bailey ZD, Raifman JR, Jackson JW. Recommendations for using causal diagrams to study racial health disparities. Am J Epidemiol. 2022 Nov 19;191(12):1981-1989. doi: 10.1093/aje/kwac140. 

Lu H, Cole SR, Howe CJ, Westreich DJ. Toward a clearer definition of selection bias when estimating causal effects. Epidemiology. 2022 Sept 1;33(5):699-706. doi: 10.1097/EDE.0000000000001516. Epub 2022 Jun 6.

Howe CJ, Robinson WR. Survival-related selection bias in studies of racial health disparities: the importance of the target population and study design. Epidemiology. 2018 Jul;29(4):521-524. doi: 10.1097/EDE.0000000000000849. 

Howe CJ, Dulin-Keita A, Cole SR, Hogan JW, Lau B, Moore RD, Mathews WC, Crain HM, Drozd DR, Geng E, Boswell SL, Napravnik S, Eron JJ, Mugavero MJ for the CFAR Network of Integrated Clinical Systems (CNICS). Evaluating the population impact on racial/ethnic disparities in HIV in adulthood of intervening on specific targets: a conceptual and methodological framework. Am J Epidemiol. 2018 Feb 1;187(2):316-325. doi: 10.1093/aje/kwx247. 

Scholarly Interests

Causal inference; quantitative methods; study design; health disparities; racial/ethnic health disparities; resilience; HIV; infectious diseases; social determinants of health; social epidemiology; neighborhoods

Affiliated Departments

School of Public Health