Roberto Abadie
Assistant Professor
205 Service Memorial Institute
1300 University Ave
Madison, WI 53706
Dr. Abadie, is a medical anthropologist specializing in how social stratification—particularly class, race/ethnicity and gender—contributes to health inequalities in marginalized populations. He has conducted NIH/NIDA and Greenwall Foundation-funded research on research ethics, public health ethics, people who inject drugs (PWID), and health disparities in Puerto Rico and the US. Abadie authored The Professional Guinea Pig: Big Pharma and the Risky World of Human Subjects, which won the Best Book of the Year Award from the Medical Sociology Section of the British Sociological Association. His work has been featured in Time Magazine, BBC, Science, and more. He has a Ph D. in anthropology from the Graduate Center, CUNY and was a postdoctoral fellow in bioethics at the Mayo Clinic.
Select Media Contributions
- Science. (May, 2024). Media Link
- Filter Magazine. (January, 2024). Media Link
- Filter Magazine. (December, 2022). Media Link
- The Miami Herald. (March, 2018). Media Link
- The Philadelphia Inquirer. (November, 2016). Media Link
- Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) Radio. (February, 2016). Media Link
- Business Section of the BBC. (November, 2010). Media Link
- The Chronicle of Higher Education. (July, 2010). Media Link
Select Publications
- Abadie, R., & Cano, M. (2024). Health disparities and injection drug use behaviors among adults with and without disabilities in the National Survey on drug use and health, 2015-2019. Disability and health journal Online Publication/Abstract.
- Abadie, R., & Fisher, C. (2024). “It didn’t hurt me: Patients’ and providers’ perspectives on unsupervised take-home doses, drug diversion, and overdose risks in the provision of medication for opioid use disorder during Covid-19.”. Harm Reduction Journal Online Publication/Abstract.
- Abadie, R. (2023). “I don’t want to die”: A qualitative study of copying strategies to prevent fentanyl-related overdose deaths among people who inject drugs in Puerto Rico. Harm Reduction Journal Online Publication/Abstract.
- Abadie, R., Cano, M., Habecker, P., & Gelpi-Acosta, C. (2022). Substance use, injection risk behaviors, and fentanyl-related overdose risk among a sample of PWID in post Hurricane Maria. Harm Reduction Journal Online Publication/Abstract.
- Abadie, R., McLean, K., Habecker, P., Welch-Lazoritz, M., Khan, B., & Dombrowski, K. (2021). Treatment trajectories and barriers to recruitment and retention in opium agonist therapy for people who inject drugs in rural Puerto Rico. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment Online Publication/Abstract.
- Abadie, R., Gelpi-Acosta, C., Aquino-Ruiz, F., & Aponte-Melendez, Y. (2020). Covid-19 risks among people who inject drugs in Puerto Rico. Int. J. Drug Policy Online Publication/Abstract.
- Abadie, R., & Dombrowski, K. (2020). “Caballo”: risk environments, drug sharing and the emergence of a Hepatitis C epidemic among people who inject drugs in Puerto Rico. Harm Reduction Journal Online Publication/Abstract.
- Abadie, R. (2019). The Exploitation of Professional “Guinea Pigs” in the gig economy: The difficult road from consent to justice. American Journal of Bioethics, 19(9), 37-39.
- Abadie, R., Gelpi-Acosta, C., Davila, C., Rivera, A., Welch-Lazoritz, M., & Dombrowski, K. (2018). “It Ruined My Life”: The effects of the War on Drugs on people who inject drugs (PWID) in rural Puerto Rico. International Journal of Drug Policy Online Publication/Abstract.
- Abadie, R., Welch-Lazoritz, M., Gelpi-Acosta, C., Reyes, J., & Dombrowski, K. (2016). “Understanding Differences in HIV/HCV Prevalence According to Differentiated Risk Behaviors in a Sample of PWID in rural Puerto Rico. Harm Reduction Journal Online Publication/Abstract.