Dr. Lorien Abroms is a professor in the Department of Prevention and Community Health at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at the George Washington University and the Associate Dean for PhD/MS Studies at the Milken Institute School of Public Health. Dr. Abroms' career focuses on the application of digital communication technologies for health promotion, including for smoking cessation and vaccine uptake. The aims of her research are to understand the effects of the digital information environment on health and to develop and evaluate evidence-based tobacco treatment programs that run on digital platforms. Dr. Abroms has developed and evaluated several apps and text messaging programs for smoking cessation, including Text2Quit which is offered through 1-800-QUITNOW and SmokefreeMoms which is offered through the National Cancer Institute's Smokefree.gov.
At George Washington University (GW), Dr. Abroms is Public Health and Governance Lead at the Institute for Data Democracy and Politics and is the founding director of the GW mHealth Collaborative, an interdisciplinary group of faculty and students in clinical medicine, public health, biostatistics, and engineering. In conjunction with the Society for Public Health Education, she is also a convener of the Digital Health Promotion Executive Leadership Summit, an annual event to convene academics, digital media executives, and government officials around social media and digital health promotion. She is an advisor to the WHO on their “Be Healthy Be Mobile” initiative.
Dr. Abroms was awarded the Early Career Award by the Public Health Education and Health Promotion (PHEHP) Section of the American Public Health Association, the Best Materials Award from the American Public Health Association, and the Gareth M. Green Award for Excellence in Public Health Practice by the Harvard School of Public Health.
She can be found on Twitter @lorien_a