Rebecca Braun, DrPH MPH
Lead, YTH Initiative
Biography
Rebecca Braun, DrPH MPH, is an experienced and dynamic leader, building domestic and global partnerships, teams, products, and services across non-profit, public, private, and philanthropic sectors. She is passionate about leveraging technology and innovation for social impact at scale. At ETR, Rebecca leads the Youth Tech Health (YTH) Initiative, designing innovative digital solutions for youth health and wellness. She brings extensive experience in strategy and business development, leadership and management, social science research, capacity building and technical assistance, and training and facilitation, with significant content expertise in digital health, human-centered design, sexual and reproductive health and rights, and maternal, child and adolescent health. She holds a DrPH and an MPH from the University of California, Berkeley.
Currently, she is the co-principal investigator and projector director of a 5-year randomized control trial to develop, implement and evaluate Yes and Know, a fully virtual intervention that integrates group-based education with digital tools to strengthen relationships and healthy life skills to promote positive health and well-being in adolescents, funded by the Office of Population Affairs. She also serves at the project director for INSPIRE+, a project empowering youth to design policy, systems, and environmental change solutions to address community health, funded by Elevate Youth California, as well as Mbaza Rwanda, a website and social media campaign for youth in Rwanda, providing HIV/AIDS information and connection to care, funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Braun also provides leadership for YTH Live Global, ETR’s premier conference that centers on the convergence of youth, technology, and health.
Dr. Braun recently served as the project director of several digital health interventions, including a randomized control trial of PrEPTECH, an integrated, technology-based approach to increasing pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) uptake among young men who have sex with men and transgender women, funded by Gilead Sciences; a randomized control trial of In The Know, an intervention integrating in-person, group based education with digital tools, providing necessary and timely skills, information, and resources to improve youth health and wellbeing, funded by the Family Youth and Services Bureau; and a mixed-method method impact evaluation of Zona Segura, a trauma-informed youth-centered mobile solution to address teen dating violence in Honduras, funded by the World Bank and the Sexual Violence Research Initiative.
Prior to ETR, Dr. Braun was a Manager at Global Impact Advisors, a social impact consulting firm where she led a portfolio of strategy, evaluation and implementation projects for foundations and nonprofit organizations. She also served as the Senior Advisor for Digital Health at Ipas, leading efforts to design creative, technology-based solutions to improve access to comprehensive abortion care across Asia, Africa and Latin America. She has provided independent research consulting services to several global health organizations, including FHI360, MSI and PSI. Rebecca has published articles in Contraception, Global Health Science & Practice, the Journal of Adolescent Health, and the American Journal of Public Health, and has spoken widely about using digital health solutions to improve global access to sexual and reproductive health.
Selected Publications:
Erenrich RK, Braun RA, Torres-Mendoza DM, Stevenson OL, Doan TP, Braun RA, Erenrich RK, Coyle KK, Doan TP, Klausner JD. (2023). Effectiveness of PrEPTECH: Findings from a 180-Day Randomized Controlled Trial of a Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis Telehealth Intervention. Journal of AIDS, 95(5):p 463-469, April 15, 2024. doi: 10.1097.
Braun RA, Erenrich RK, Coyle KK, Doan TP, Klausner JD. (2023). Effectiveness, Acceptability, and Feasibility of a Telehealth HIV Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis Care Intervention Among Young Cisgender Men and Transgender Women Who Have Sex With Men: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial. JMIR Research Protocols 2023;12:e47932.
Braun R, Greever A. (2020). Scaling up Access to Implants: A Summative Evaluation of the Implants Access Program (IAP). Global Health Science and Practice, 8(2), 205–219.
Braun R, Yegon E, Burke B, Packer S, Sitati S, Mulase L, Barasa P. (2017). An evaluation of a community-based mobile referral system to improve reproductive healthcare in Kenya. Contraception, 96(4), 278.
Braun R, Lasway C, Agarwal S, L’Engle K, Layer E, Silas L, Mwakibete A, Kudrati M. (2016). An Evaluation of a Family Planning Mobile Job Aid for Community Health Workers in Tanzania. Contraception, 94(1), 27-33.
Agarwal S, Lasway C, L’Engle K, Homan R, Layer E, Ollis S, Braun R, Silas L, Mwakibete A, Mustafa K. (2016). Family Planning Counseling in Your Pocket: A Mobile Job Aid for Community Health Workers in Tanzania. Global Health Science and Practice, 94(1), 27-33.
Sheoran B, Braun R, Gaarde JP, Levine DK. (2014). The Hookup: Collaborative Evaluation of a Youth Sexual Health Program Using Text Messaging Technology. JMIR mHealth and eHealth, 2(4), e51.
Braun R, Catalani C, Wimbush J, Israelski D. (2013). Community Health Workers and Mobile Technology: A Systematic Review of the Literature. PLoS ONE, 8(6), e65772.
Perry RCW, Kayekjian KC, Braun R, Cantu M, Sheoran B, Chung PJ. (2012). Adolescents' Perspectives on the Use of a Text Messaging Service for Preventive Sexual Health Promotion. Journal of Adolescent Health, 51(3), 220-5.
