PhD, LMSW

Assistant Professor

Dr. Adams is a social work researcher, advocate, and educator dedicated to improving the availability, accessibility, and quality of mental health services delivered in under-resourced communities to improve health equity for historically marginalized populations. Her research is motivated by her previous clinical experiences as a social worker in a Chicago Public High School and as a community mental health therapist. Her approach to research and teaching is also informed by her experience as a low-income, first-generation college and graduate student from rural South Dakota. Dr. Adams takes an applied, policy-relevant, and community-engaged approach to her research, examining the multilevel relationships involved in improving access to effective mental health services. Recently, Dr. Adams has been studying psychedelic-assisted therapy (PAT), an innovative treatment showing promising results for a variety of mental health conditions, researching implementation and policy strategies that will facilitate the equitable adoption of this treatment in safety-net health settings.

Education

• NIMH T32 Postdoctoral Fellowship, Washington University, Brown School of Social Work, 2024
• PhD, University of Chicago, Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice, 2022
• MSW, University of Chicago, Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice, 2018
• BA, Roosevelt University, 2014

Research interests

• Increasing access to evidence-based mental health services
• Dissemination and implementation science
• Federal- and state-level mental health policy
• Trauma-informed policy and practice
• Psychedelic-assisted therapy
• Strengthening the mental health workforce
• Medicaid policy

Courses taught

• SW8953 Evaluative Research in Social Work

Selected publications

• Adams, D. R., Pérez-Flores, N. J. Mabrouk, F., Minor, C. (2024). Assessing real-world access to outpatient trauma-informed mental health services for adolescents: A mystery shopper study. Psychiatric Services, 75(5), 402-409.
• Adams, D. R., Allen, H., Nicol, G., Cabassa, L. (In press). Moving psychedelic-assisted therapies from promising research into routine clinical practice: Lessons from the field of implementation science. Translational Behavioral Medicine.
• Adams, D. R. (2018). Social works role in collaborative community-academic partnerships: How our past informs our future. Social Work, 64(1), 19-28. PubMed PMID: 30364997.
• Adams, D. R., Williams, N. J., Becker-Haimes, E. M., Skriner, L., Shaffer, L., DeWitt, K., Neimark, G., Jones, D. T., Beidas, R. S. (2019). Therapist financial strain and turnover: Interactions with system-level implementation of evidence-based practices. Administration and Policy in Mental Health, 46(6), 713-723. PMCID: PMC7083521.
• Adams, D. R., Meyers, S., Beidas, R. S. (2016). The relationship between financial strain, perceived stress, psychological symptoms, and academic and social integration in undergraduate students. Journal of American College Health, 64(5), 362-370. PMCID: PMC5086162.

Research profiles

• Google scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=j3rye2QAAAAJ&hl=en
• ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Danielle-Adams-4

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