Andrea Davis, MPH, CPH (she/her/hers)

Associate Director, FIRST
aly25@drexel.edu

Ms. Andrea Davis is the Associate Director for the FIRST Center at the Drexel University Dornsife School of Public Health. Joining the FIRST team in 2013, she has nearly 10 years of experience working with the fire and rescue service. Ms. Davis oversees the day-to-day operations of the FIRST Center, including all research grants and contracts, management of all FIRST Center staff and students, and serves as the qualitative expert on our team. Her experience spans all aspects of study design, including creation of essential study materials, facilitating interviews and focus groups, and returning analyzed data to our fire service partners, among others. She recruits fire departments for our studies, organizes site visits, develops and facilitates focus groups and interviews, and conducts data analysis. Ms. Davis trains all graduate students and FIRE Fellows on qualitative data collection and analysis. She was an integral part of the team that developed the FOCUS survey, recruiting over 130 fire departments to participate in its field testing. With the FIRST Center team, she grew the impact of the FOCUS survey to over 500 fire departments and 60,000 firefighters across the country. For our COVID-19 RAPID Mental Health Assessment, she oversaw the project team and led the recruitment of 20 partner fire departments. Ms. Davis regularly communicates with the FIRST Center Advisory Board, collaborators, and fire service stakeholders, and she is a consistent presenter and author of FIRST Center presentations and publications. Ms. Davis travels around the country with the FIRST Center team to deliver FOCUS Culture Camps, our in-person educational training with fire departments to help them to be comfortable and confident in their FOCUS safety culture results. Her favorite part of being the Associate Director of the FIRST Center is being out in the field, talking directly to first responders of all ranks, to enact positive change for their health and safety.

Ms. Davis received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Delaware and a Master of Liberal Arts from the Harvard University Extension School. She earned her Master of Public Health degree, concentrating in Environmental & Occupational Health, from Drexel University and holds the designation of Certified in Public health (CPH) from the National Board of Public Health Examiners.