Danelle Stevens-Watkins, PhD
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d.stevenswatkins@uky.eduPositions
- Professor
- Dual Appointment – College of Education (Department of Educational, School, and Counseling Psychology)
College Unit(s)
- Center on Drug and Alcohol Research
- Center for Health, Engagement, and Transformation
- College of Medicine
Biography and Education
Biography
Dr. Stevens-Watkins received her PhD in counseling psychology from the University of Kentucky in 2008 and her MA in clinical psychology in 2004 from Spalding University. She completed an APA-accredited internship in the residential drug abuse treatment program at the Federal Medical Center in Lexington in 2007. She is a core faculty member of the Center for Health, Engagement, and Transformation and a faculty affiliate of the Center for Drug and Alcohol Research. Broadly, her research focuses on health disparities and barriers to service utilization among African American populations. She has current projects focused on breastfeeding and maternal morbidity among African American women. In addition, she has over a decade of consecutive funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) as principal investigator or co-investigator. Her projects have focused on criminality, drug use, and HIV risk among African American women. She completed an NIH (K08) Mentored Career Development Award with a research emphasis on the dynamic interaction between anxiety, depression, drug abuse, and HIV risk behaviors among African American male prisoners. She currently has an NIH R01 from NIDA titled, "Research Examining Factors Associated with the Opioid Crisis among Under-served African Americans (REFOCUS)." She was also the principal investigator on an NIH U24 coordinating NIDA REI grantees and she is an MPI for an NIGMS R25 focused on faculty development.
Selected Publications
Peterson, R.L., *Goggins, M., Mizelle, D., Miller-Roenigk, B, Hargons, C.N. & Stevens-Watkins, D. (2025) Brief report: Naloxone decline among African American Kentuckians. Forthcoming Substance Use and Addiction Journal. PMID: 40674031
Miller-Roenigk, B., Thorpe, S., *Palomino, K., Stevens-Watkins, D. (2025) Breastfeeding barriers among Black mothers: Maternal guilt, shame, and other affective stressors. Paper forthcoming in Women and Therapy.
Hargons, C., Miller-Roenigk, B., *Malone, N., *Peterson, R., *Mizelle, D., Stevens-Watkins, D. (2024). “Not knowing that I could get addicted at any moment”: Drug use initiation narratives among Black people. Paper forthcoming in Qualitative Psychology.
Miller-Roenigk, B., Wheeler, P., *Jester, J., Hargons, C., Stevens-Watkins, D. (2024). Generational and gender patterns of prescription opioid misuse. Paper forthcoming in Journal of Substance Abuse and Addictions Treatment, 164:209436. PMCID: PMC11300149.
Dogan-Dixon, J., *Wheeler, P.B., Cunningham, K., Stevens-Watkins, D. and Stoops, W.W. (2024). Systematic review of cocaine treatment interventions for Black Americans. Clinical Psychological Science, 13(1), 83-103. PMCID: PMC11978402.
Wheeler, P.B., Miller-Roenigk, B., *Jester, J., Stevens-Watkins, D. (2024). Knowledge, experience, and perceptions of medications for opioid use disorder among Black Kentuckians. Annals of Medicine, 56(1). PMCID: PMC10916927.
Thorpe, S., *Orphé, P., *Pitcher, G., *McCleod, K. *Malone, N., Stevens-Watkins, D. (2024). Correlates of transactional sex among Black men and women who misuse opioids. Health Education and Behavior, 51(3), 416-424. PMCID: PMC11200108.
Dogan, J., Hargons, C., Stevens-Watkins, D. (2023). “Don’t Feel Like You Have to Do This All on Your Own”: Exploring perceived partner support of breastfeeding among Black Women in Kentucky. Journal of Human Lactation. 39(1), 134-145. PMID: 36511173 NOTE*Received Honorable Mention for by the Journal of Human Lactation for the Miriam Labbok New Investigator Award. This award is given to a novice researcher whose JHL published research has made a significant contribution to the body of lactation knowledge.
Stevens-Watkins, D., Hargons, C.N., *Dogan, J.N, *Malone, N, *Jester, J.K., *Thorpe, S., & Linares, A.M. (2022). Social healthcare determinants of breastfeeding Black women: A multigenerational study. Breastfeeding Medicine, 17(8), 666-672. PMID: 35947855
Stevens-Watkins, D. (2020). Opioid-related overdose deaths among African Americans:
Implications for research, practice and policy. Drug and Alcohol Review, 39(7), 857-861 PMCID:PMC32281200