The Missing US Project is more than a research lab. It is a collaborative project that includes researchers, policymakers, and community members with a shared goal: to improve our understanding of and responses to established and emerging epidemics among vulnerable and marginalized populations. The idea for this project is predicated on the notion that there are overlooked populations and hidden structural risk factors for diseases such as substance use disorders and HIV that limit our ability to end these epidemics. Fundamentally, we believe that we cannot reach people we do not know exist and are at risk. The Missing US is a collaborative, community-engaged project that merges community voices and lived experience with innovative data science and epidemiological methods to provide a more complete ground-to-cloud picture of the public health landscape than ever before.

Our team includes decision scientists, epidemiologists, and community-engaged researchers who have specific expertise in some of the most important issues of our time:

• Substance use and overdose
• Emerging infectious diseases
• Homelessness and housing insecurity
• Mental health and suicide
• Criminal justice reform

We work with local and national organizations, community activists, policymakers, and people with lived experience to integrate data-driven approaches into everything from patient care to guidelines to new legislation.