Her primary research and teaching emphases include substance use prevention and control, health services research, social and behavioral epidemiology, and program evaluation. She has extensive research experience in the epidemiology and prevention of substance use, quantitative data collection and analysis, and clinical research. She is a certified health education specialist and tobacco treatment specialist. Dr. Merianos has been successfully funded for her research by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (K01DA044313). This research will identify the health and economic burden of child secondhand smoke exposure on the acute healthcare setting and create an implementation plan to reduce exposure in a future trial.