Nichole Michaels, PhD

Dr. Michaels’ primary research interests include identifying and evaluating practices for drug overdose harm reduction and the treatment of individuals with substance use disorders; developing primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention strategies for child maltreatment; and understanding the impact of the opioid epidemic on child abuse and neglect. She currently leads two R01 studies, funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the NIH, to evaluate the feasibility, acceptability, and associated benefits and harms of using fentanyl test strips as a drug overdose harm reduction strategy. She also leads a study on social and environmental factors that influence child maltreatment in communities with higher and lower rates of opioid overdose, funded by the CDC as part of the Injury Control Research Center award.

Dr. Michaels’ lab is also working with community partners from the criminal justice system to improve outcomes for families referred to the child welfare system due to parental substance use disorders. These research projects will evaluate a newly developed family treatment court diversion program and examine the role of social support and social networks in family treatment courts to identify positive and negative influences on family reunification and recovery from substance use disorders.

Publications

Nichole L. Michaels, PhD, is a principal investigator in the Center for Injury Research and Policy and an associate professor of Pediatrics at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. Dr. Michaels has held various roles in the center since 2005, serving most recently as a senior research scientist, and was previously appointed as an adjunct assistant professor at OSUCOM in 2017.