Biography

Morgan Justice is a health services researcher passionate about exploring how social conditions and inequities affect our health outcomes, as these factors can have an even greater impact on our health than the care we receive within the health care system. She is interested in incorporating social health into pragmatic trials seeking to improve outcomes for those living with substance use disorders and chronic pain, with the goal of promoting health equity, informing policy, and ultimately improving health care for everyone.

Morgan joined Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute (KPWHRI) as a collaborative scientist in 2021. Her recent work has included collaborating on large-scale pragmatic clinical trials on chronic pain, opioid use disorder, and mental health conditions, as well as a quasi-experimental study exploring the impact of social health on chronic pain and utilization outcomes under a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services policy for nonpharmacologic therapies.

Before joining KPWHRI, Morgan was a technical project director at the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research. Her work included observational and prospective cohort studies on the safety of opioid analgesics, pragmatic trials on palliative care and colorectal cancer screening, and other epidemiologic studies on chronic conditions such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. She also previously held posts with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where she collaborated on epidemiologic studies involving children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and Tourette Syndrome, and with Georgia State University, where she focused on community-based participatory research with youth experiencing homelessness in Atlanta.

Morgan holds a Master of Arts in sociology and a graduate certificate in public health with an emphasis in biostatistics from Georgia State University. She is a doctoral candidate in health systems and policy at the Oregon Health & Sciences University.