Ashley Yaugher

Ashley Yaugher is an Associate Professor at Utah State University (USU) under the Professional Practice Extension program, affiliated with the HEART Initiative in Carbon & Emery Counties Extension. Her work focuses on public health, mental health, and substance use disorders, particularly in rural communities.

• Department: Marriage and Family Relations (Extension)
• Research Areas: Adolescent brain development, opioid crisis prevention, chronic pain therapies, and rural health education

Her research spans mental health education, stigma reduction, and behavioral interventions, with recent publications addressing opioid use disorder, e-cigarette prevention, and ACT therapy for chronic pain. She emphasizes community-driven health initiatives and rural public health equity.

Current projects include evaluating multicomponent prevention programs and exploring the intersection of environmental factors (e.g., coal mining) with mental health outcomes. Her work integrates narrative-based stigma reduction strategies and person-place analyses of substance misuse trends.