Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Studies

Josiah (Jody) D. Rich, MD, MPH (NAM) is a Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at Brown University, and a practicing infectious disease and addiction specialist providing care to patients at The Miriam Hospital and the Rhode Island Department of Corrections since 1994. He has published over 200 peer-reviewed publications, predominantly in the overlap between infectious diseases, addictions, and incarceration. He is the Director and Co-Founder of The Center for Prisoner Health and Human Rights at The Miriam Hospital (www.prisonerhealth.org) and Co-Founder of the nationwide Centers for AIDS Research Collaboration on HIV in Corrections initiative. Dr. Rich has advocated for public health policy changes to improve the health of people with addiction, including improving legal access to sterile syringes and increasing drug treatment for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated populations. He has had continuous NIH research funding for over 2 decades. His primary areas of interest and expertise are in the overlap between infectious diseases and illicit substance use, the treatment and prevention of HIV infection, and the care and prevention of disease in addicted and incarcerated individuals. More recently he has focused on addressing the opioid overdose epidemic. He has testified in congress multiple times and served as an expert advisor to Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo’s Overdose Prevention and Intervention Task Force since its inception in 2015.