Biography

Karina Villalba received her Ph.D. in Public Health with training in health behavior and a master’s degree in Environmental and Occupational Health from Florida International University. Dr. Villalba was part of the T32 NIH 2-year postdoctoral training at the Alcohol & Drug Abuse Center of Excellence at Louisiana State University, School of Medicine. She joined UCF, College of Medicine in 2020 as a tenure-track Assistant Professor at the Population Health Sciences Department with a joint appointment at the Violence Against Women Faculty Cluster and she is the founding director of the Women’s Global Health Research Lab https://med.ucf.edu/kvillalba

She is a fellow for Centro de Esudios Andaluces in Spain.

Dr. Villalba’s research centers on the interplay between substance use, mental health disorders, and gender-based violence affecting women She also examines how gender-related social and structural variables such as race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and health disparities impact women’s health. Her focus is on understanding the effects of cannabis on mental health, including conditions such as PTSD, anxiety, and depression, and the potential therapeutic benefits of cannabidiol (CBD) use on these conditions as well as the role of CBD on cannabis and alcohol use disorders. Dr. Villalba’s research aims to improve the understanding of these complex issues and contribute to the development of effective interventions and treatments.

In addition, Dr. Villalba’s commitment extends globally, as she has established a network of researchers across Latin America and Spain, furthering the field of women’s health research and addressing global challenges within the realm of public health. She has recently focused her research on the effects of Long COVID on women in Spain an area that is understudied and not well understood.

** If you are interested and would like to learn more about ongoing research projects, send her an email.

Recent Publications:

Peer Reviewed:

• Villalba K., Del Pino E, Tadesse S, Barrera A, Ceballos D. The Association Between Mental Health, Substance Use, and Religious Faith Among Young Adults in Times of the Pandemic in Peru and Ecuador. PloS one 2022. (in press).
• Villalba K., Del Pino E. Guerrero SC, Gomez Velasco NY, Lima-Jardinillo R, Zambrano Cevallos P, Barreda-Parra A, Martin MC.  Vaccine hesitance and mental health among young adults in Latin America. Global Mental Health 2022. (in press).
• Martin, M.P., Obioha, C.U., Villalba, K., Del Pino Espejo, M.-J., Curtis, D., Padrón-Monedero, A., 2022. Association between Sociodemographic Factors and Abuse by a Parent or Intimate Partner Violence among Haitian Women: A Population-Based Study. Women 2, 76–87. doi:10.3390/women2010009
• Ibañez, G. E., Sanchez, M., Villalba, K., & Amaro, H. (2022). Acting with awareness moderates the association between lifetime exposure to interpersonal traumatic events and craving via trauma symptoms: a moderated indirect effects model. BMC Psychiatry, 22(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12888-022-03931-1
• Ahmed, S., Algarin, A. B., Thadar, H., Zhou, Z., Taskin, T., Vaddiparti, K., Villalba, K., Wang, Y., Ennis, N., Morano, J. P., Somboonwit, C., Cook, R. L., & Ibañez, G. E. (2022). Comorbidities among persons living with HIV (PLWH) in Florida: a network analysis. AIDS Care, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540121.2022.2038363
• Sissamis, F., Villalba, K., Garcia J., Melus, V., Markentell, E. J., Perez, L. D., & Ramirez, G. (2022). Religion and death in the United States: a meta-regression comparative assessment of between-county mortality heterogeneity in the United States. International journal of environmental research and public health, 19(2), 757.
• Attonito, J., Villalba, K., & Fontal, S. (2021). Priorities for Alcohol Use Disorder Treatment and Prevention During COVID-19’s Second Wave. American Journal of Public Health, 111(3), 359-362.
• Richards, V. L., Sajdeya, R., Villalba, K., Wang, Y., Bryant, V., Brumback, B., & Cook, R. L. (2021). Secondary Analysis of a Randomized Clinical Trial of Naltrexone Among Women Living With HIV: Correlations Between Reductions in Self‐Reported Alcohol Use and Changes in Phosphatidylethanol. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 45(1), 174-180.
• Villalba, K., Jean-Gilles, M., Rosenberg, R., Cook, R. L., Ichite, A., Martin, P., & Dévieux, J. G. (2021). Understanding the impact of intimate partner violence type and timing on pre-exposure prophylaxis knowledge, acceptability, sexual behavior, and gender roles among women of color. Journal of interpersonal violence, 08862605211001468.
• Sepulveda JM, Villalba K, Mora Garcia JP, Turra Diaz O (2022). Tensión epistémica entre multiculturalismo anglosajón e interculturalidad latinoamericana: sus proyecciones en educación. Revista de Filosofía, Centro de Estudios Filosóficos, Universidad del Zulia. Maracaibo – Venezuela: 39 pp. 132 – 142 (100). DOI 10.5281/zenodo.5979768