Cynthia L. Arfken is fellow at ISPU and an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences at Wayne State University. Her research expertise is on alcohol and drug abuse epidemiology and health services research. As an epidemiologist, she was selected to monitor trends in drug use for the Detroit metropolitan area as part of a national sentinel system on the emergence of new drugs, new methods of administration, and new use by demographic groups. Based upon the monitoring of the area with the highest density of Arab Americans in the country, she developed a focus on the alcohol and drug use patterns among Arab Americans and American Muslims. In addition to her publications and service as guest editor of a special issue on Substance Abuse in the Arab World for the Journal of Muslim Mental Health and on the editorial board of the Journal of Muslim Mental Health, she directs and collaborates on multiple research projects addressing mental health and substance abuse among Arab Americans and American Muslims. Dr. Arfken received a PhD in chronic disease epidemiology from Yale University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in alcohol research from the University of California in Berkeley.
Ph.D. Yale University
American Muslim Health , Health Care , Mental Health , Muslim Youth , Muslims in the West