Sarah Wood, MD

Dr. Sarah Wood is the Division Chief of of Adolescent Medicine and Director of the Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center (AHC) and an Associate Professor of Pediatrics in the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She is a physician scientist with a career mission to improve quality and equitable delivery of sexual and reproductive health care for adolescents and young adults. A former community health worker and HIV tester, Dr. Wood received her undergraduate degree at DePaul University and her M.D. at Drexel University of College of Medicine. After completing residency at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), Dr. Wood continued her training as an Adolescent Medicine fellow and received a Masters of Science in Health Policy Research at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. After completing her training, joined the faculty at Penn and CHOP, conducting research to develop innovative health care delivery strategies through the Craig Dalsimer Division of Adolescent Medicine and CHOP’s PolicyLab. She was the Co-Director of the Clinical Core of the Penn Center for AIDS Research and the Assistant Director of Adolescent HIV Services. In 2024, she joined the faculty at Mount Sinai to carry on the mission and the vision of the Division of Adolescent Medicine and the AHC.

Her research, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health and Gilead Sciences, focuses on developing and implementing HIV prevention interventions in adolescent primary care.  She has published over 50 publications in peer-reviewed journal, and is a frequent speaker on podcasts, webinars, and national meetings dedicated to adolescent health.  Clinically, she is an Adolescent Medicine and HIV specialist committed to improving the care for youth locally and globally.

 

RESEARCH PROFILE
Dr. Wood is an early-stage clinician investigator focused on reducing HIV and sexually transmitted infections (STI) incidence among adolescents and young adults. Over the past decade, she led clinical research exploring the structural and healthcare-associated determinants of HIV prevention behavior in youth and the health systems that serve them. Her secondary research focus uses implementation science to improve integration of sexual health services into routine preventive care for adolescents. Dr. Wood has a strong track record of funding including F32 and K23 grants from NIMH Health and funding from the Penn Center for AIDS Research (CFAR), Penn Mental Health AIDS Research Center, Gilead Sciences, and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s PolicyLab. She draws on her expertise in adolescent health, implementation science, health inequities research to mentor junior scientists (particularly those from groups underrepresented in medicine) and build academic-community partnerships. She leads a robust computational science laboratory which uses clinic-derived STI testing data to develop interventions to address gaps in high quality and equitable service delivery. Dr. Wood is a former Inter-Center for AIDS Research Implementation Science Fellow and has led community-informed implementation science research across diverse settings including federally-funded family planning clinics, sexual and reproductive health clinics in Botswana, and the Philadelphia Department of Public Health.