Alisa Padon, PhD

Biography

Alisa A. Padon, PhD, is the research director for the Prevention Policy Group (PPG) at the Public Health Institute (PHI). She has a broad background in behavioral science research methods, and her research focus has centered on commercial determinants of health outcomes, health policy development, and evaluation.

Dr. Padon also has specific expertise in youth-appealing marketing and promotions of cannabis, alcohol, and tobacco products. She developed the Content Appealing to Youth (CAY) index, a marketing measurement tool that examines psychosocial and neurocognitive appeals through the lens of youths’ vulnerabilities during their unique developmental stage.

Her work at PHI has examined the impacts of cannabis policy implementation on public health to develop actionable policy recommendations. Dr. Padon has led the development and annual collection of several cannabis-related regulatory and retail datasets, including: (1) the California Local Cannabis Laws Database (CLCLD) covering 539 city and county jurisdictions with 158 variables spanning retail practices, equity provisions, product and advertising restrictions, smokefree air policies, and more; and (2) the Dispensaries Database, which merges California Department of Cannabis Control license data with Weedmaps listings to capture retailer hours, discounts, and products. These datasets have been paired with outcomes data such as youth cannabis use, prenatal cannabis use, and point-of-sale metrics to test the effects of specific regulatory and retail characteristics on health.

Dr. Padon holds a doctorate in public health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She completed a master’s in bioethics and postdoctoral work at the University of Pennsylvania. She also spent several years as a senior Institutional Review Board (IRB) administrator at the University of Pennsylvania and has been a member of the PHI IRB since 2017.

Resume

You can view or download my full CV here: Alisa Padon CV (PDF) .

Contact

Email Alisa at alisa@example.com or connect via LinkedIn.