Kristina Phillips, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and research investigator at CIHR, Kaiser Permanente Hawaii. She completed her PhD in Clinical Psychology and Behavioral Medicine from Bowling Green State University and a post-doctoral fellowship at the Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies at Brown University. Dr. Phillips joined CIHR in 2019 and has expertise in substance use and addiction. Her primary research interests focus on contextual factors contributing to substance-related harm, health outcomes associated with substance use, risk reduction, brief intervention and treatment outcome, and ecological momentary assessment (EMA) and intervention (EMI; mHealth). In addition, her work is increasingly including a focus on health disparities among Asian American, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander and other groups, co-use of cannabis, nicotine, and/or alcohol, and smoking cessation.

Dr. Phillips was recently the principal investigator and co-investigator of two NIDA-funded clinical trials that tested a risk reduction intervention with motivational interviewing components for people who inject drugs in Denver and Boston. Another line of her research program focuses on the assessment of real-time substance use in adult populations. A recent NIDA-funded project on this topic utilized EMA to learn about factors associated with cannabis use in young adults “in the moment” using smartphones. Another NIDA-funded project is examining environmental and contextual factors (e.g., public injection, stigma/discrimination) associated with high-risk drug practices among people who inject drugs in Hawai’i, most of whom are unhoused. Lastly, Dr. Phillips has a new NIDA-funded project that focuses on developing a new mobile intervention for young adults using cannabis and alcohol who are at risk of developing substance use disorder.

Before joining CIHR, Dr. Phillips was a professor in the School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Northern Colorado, where she developed her research program, taught undergraduate and graduate courses, and mentored students in independent research.