Leslie Adams

Leslie Adams, PhD, MPH is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Public Mental Health and Population Sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine, with a courtesy appointment in Pediatrics. She is also a member of the Maternal & Child Health Research Institute (MCHRI). Previously, she served as an Assistant Professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard's Center for Population and Development Studies. Dr. Adams holds a PhD in Health Behavior from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, an MPH from The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, and a BA in Neuroscience from Dartmouth College.

Her research focuses on addressing mental health disparities among Black boys and men, particularly examining how structural racism, gender norms, and psychosocial stressors influence mental health outcomes. She employs mixed-methods approaches including ecological momentary assessment and passive data sensing to study real-time stressors like racial discrimination and their links to depressive symptoms and suicidality. Her work emphasizes culturally informed prevention strategies and mental health equity, with a focus on Black male suicide prevention and intervention design.

Dr. Adams has contributed to over 48 peer-reviewed publications, including high-impact papers on structural racism's role in suicide risk (RECEIPTS model), smartphone-based suicide prevention tools for Black men, and cross-national studies of adolescent suicidality in West Africa. Her research has been supported by institutions such as the Maternal & Child Health Research Institute and the National Institutes of Health.

Collaborations include interdisciplinary teams addressing health equity in suicide prevention, healthcare discrimination, and disparities in chronic disease management. She actively participates in policy initiatives to reduce mental health disparities through culturally responsive interventions and structural reforms.