Elizabeth Salisbury-Afshar, MD, MPH

Dr. Salisbury-Afshar’s focus is on improving the health and wellbeing of people who use drugs and alcohol. She is board certified in family medicine, addiction medicine, and preventive medicine/general public health and her expertise lies at the intersection of these fields. Her work includes patient care, teaching, public health practice, and research related to implementation and evaluation of addiction-related programs.

Prior to coming to the University of Wisconsin, Dr. Salisbury-Afshar has worked in the public and not for profit sectors. She served as the Medical Director of Behavioral Health Systems Baltimore, where she developed and oversaw the Baltimore City Overdose Prevention Plan, the Opioid Fatality Review Board, and the third-party naloxone distribution program. She subsequently served as the Medical Director at Heartland Alliance Health, a federally qualified health center serving people experiencing homelessness and/or living with HIV in Chicago. In this role, she oversaw clinical care delivery at 2 clinics and in over 45 shelters and supervised 14 medical clinicians. She also led the development of medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD) treatment programming and supported successful receipt of several HRSA grants to support these services.

She then became the Medical Director of Behavioral Health at the Chicago Department of Public Health, where she created and implemented the Department’s strategy to address the opioid overdose crisis, helped to standardize the way opioid-related morbidity and mortality was analyzed and reported, developed provider education learning collaboratives to increase access to MOUD treatment, and supported expansion of naloxone access through funding and educational initiatives. Immediately prior to coming to UW, Dr. Salisbury-Afshar served as the Director of the Center for Addiction Research and Effective Solutions (CARES) at the American Institutes for Research. She led a variety of projects ranging from addiction-related public health strategy to the development of technical assistance to expand access to evidence-based addiction treatment.

Dr. Salisbury-Afshar has over twelve years of experience working clinically in federally qualified health centers- providing both primary care and addiction medicine treatment. She currently practices at Access Community Health Centers and as a consulting physician in addiction medicine at UW Hospital. She is core faculty in the UW Addiction Medicine Fellowship Program. She also holds a joint appointment in the Department of Population Health Sciences, serves as the Program Director of the Preventive Medicine Residency, and as the Medical Director of Harm Reduction Services for the Wisconsin Department of Health Services Division of Public Health.