Daniel Whitaker

Daniel Whitaker is Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Behavioral Sciences and Associate Dean for Research at the Georgia State University School of Public Health. He also co-directs the National SafeCare Training and Research Center (NSTRC) within the Mark Chaffin Centers for Healthy Development.

Education

• Ph.D., 1996, University of Georgia – Social Psychology with concentration in Statistics and Research Design
• M.S., 1993, Villanova University – Psychology
• B.A., 1989, State University of New York at Albany – Psychology

Research Interests
Whitaker’s work centers on the prevention of family violence, particularly child maltreatment and intimate partner violence. He applies rigorous implementation-science and intervention-research approaches to translate evidence-based programs—most notably SafeCare—into real-world settings across the United States and internationally. His current emphases include cultural adaptation of parenting curricula for refugee and immigrant communities, technology-supported home visiting, and integration of tobacco-smoke exposure reduction with child-abuse prevention.

His scholarly portfolio demonstrates a sustained focus on:

• Dissemination & implementation of evidence-based parenting interventions
• Effectiveness trials of SafeCare in child-welfare systems
• Adaptation and scale-up of interventions for refugee populations
• Systematic braiding of prevention programs to address co-occurring risks
• Policy-level analyses of Medicaid expansion and opioid-use-disorder treatment access
• Utilization of mobile health and telehealth technologies in home-based services

Grants & Funding
Whitaker has served as principal investigator on major federal awards from:

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
• National Institutes of Health (NIH)
• Administration on Children and Families (ACF)
• Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)
• Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI)

Labs, Centers & Teams
As Co-Director of the National SafeCare Training and Research Center (NSTRC), Whitaker oversees national and international dissemination of SafeCare, training of thousands of providers, and continuous quality-improvement research. The NSTRC is housed within the Mark Chaffin Centers for Healthy Development, providing interdisciplinary collaboration with scholars in child development, behavioral sciences, and public health.