Dr. Rupa Patel MD MPH is an infectious diseases physician and public health expert. She is a Research Associate Professor of Medicine (Voluntary) in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Washington University in St. Louis. She is the former Director of the CDC Midwest HIV Prevention Capacity Building Center which provides program development technical assistance to health departments, clinics, and community-based organizations (CBO) in 12 states.
Her research focuses on biomedical HIV prevention implementation strategies (PrEP/PEP) in non-clinical settings (e.g., peer-led programs, CBO and pharmacy-based programs, telePrEP, at-home care, etc.) and primary care safety-net centers, as well as cost- and insurance-related barriers to PrEP care for young adults at risk for HIV. She has participated in several clinical trials for the development of biomedical HIV prevention products.
Dr. Patel is a member of the WHO PrEP Implementation Technical Advisory Group and has served as a PrEP clinical advisor for large-scale projects in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. She is a peer reviewer for WHO's PrEP Implementation Tool. She is the Scientific Advisor for the UN-affiliated Medicines Patent Pool. She is a content contributor for CDC's National PrEP Curriculum.
Dr. Patel currently practices medicine in Washington, D.C. at Whitman-Walker Health (WWH) and is the Lead for Biomedical HIV Prevention Research at Whitman-Walker Institute. She is the Medical Liaison of the PrEP Clinic at WWH where she oversees care, protocol development, and program evaluation activities for 2300 PrEP clients. She completed her Internal Medicine Residency at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Infectious Diseases Fellowship at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and Master of Public Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
