Maya Vijayaraghavan, MD, MAS

Dr. Vijayaraghavan is a practicing general internist and a researcher in tobacco control with a focus on populations experiencing homelessness. She is the Director of the UCSF Smoking Cessation Leadership Center, a Center focused on eliminating disparities in tobacco use prevalence among behavioral health populations. Through her work, she has intervened at the individual, community, health systems and policy levels to help increase access to cessation services. Her intervention research, funded by the NCI, TRDRP, NIMHD, and SFCAN, stems from collaborations with community organizations and healthcare systems. She has collaborated with homeless shelters and supportive housing to implement interventions to increase access to smoking cessation services and smoke-free policies for people who have experienced homelessness. Here team leads three studies: 1) a cluster randomized controlled trial of a smoke-free home intervention for formerly homeless adults in 38 permanent supportive housing sites in the San Francisco Bay Area; 2) a contingency management smoking cessation intervention for adults experiencing homelessness and engaged in primary care in the safety-net clinics; and 3) a community-pharmacy linked cessation program for people experiencing homelessness. She co-directs a NIDA-funded postdoctoral training program at the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, focused on tobacco and substance use related research. Dr. Vijayaraghavan received her Bachelors in Science from Brown University, her medical degree from Boston University of School of Medicine, and complete an internal medicine residency at Columbia University Medical Center.