Dr. Dawn Kristen Smith

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Dr. Dawn Kristen Smith, a prolific and pioneering HIV/AIDS researcher, epidemiologist and public health professional at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, died of unknown causes at her Atlanta home on Monday, October 31 several days before her 73rd birthday.
Smith was a a Medical Officer and Biomedical Prevention Activity Lead in the HIV Research Branch, within the Division of HIV Prevention, National Center for HIV, Hepatitis, Sexually Transmitted Infections and Tuberculosis, at CDC. She was also the lead of the Prevent Pillar Workgroup at CDC, one of the four pillars in the U.S. "Ending the HIV Epidemic in the US" initiative.
She was among the earliest researchers to focus on the social, emotional and medical impacts of HIV/AIDS on American women--especially women of color. Her 1997 research paper, "Design and Baseline Participant Characteristics of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus Epidemiology Research (HER) Study: A Prospective Cohort Study of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Infection in US Women," was published John Hopkins University's American Journal of Epidemiology and followed 871 HIV-infected and 439 were uninfected women for two years to identify behaviors and other factors that put women at greater risk of contracting the virus.
During her career Smith authored over a hundred peer-reviewed studies that illuminated the toll of HIV/AIDS on communities that had traditionally been underrepresented in American medical literature, including the children of HIV-positive parents, intravenous drug users, and African American, Latino, Asian, and Native American communities. A 2016 article of hers published in PLOS ONE about clinician awareness and use of PrEP is one of the journal's most downloaded articles.
At the time of her death, Smith was preparing to conduct a nationwide study of the implementation of HIV prevention approaches among Black men and women in the US.
Born in Niles, Michigan in 1949, Smith went to high school in Chicago, Illinois, and in 1969 studied for her undergraduate degree at the University of Puget Sound and then at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. While studying she toured as a singer and actress with Baha'i theater groups and briefly joined the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California. She was married to Gregory C. Dahl from 1973-1979.
Despite having never completed her undergraduate degree, Smith was accepted as a candidate at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester where she graduated with her Doctor of Medicine while raising two children as a single mother on government assistance.
Smith completed her residency at the Indian Health Service Hospital in Fort Defiance, Arizona and in 1986 she returned to academic life, earning dual master's degrees in public health and in Statistics from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. It was during this time that she learned of a new and deadly disease that was killing African American people at a disproportionate rate. Thus began her lifelong commitment to fighting HIV/AIDS.
Smith's studies took her as far abroad as Botswana, where she spent several years investigating the efficacy of post-exposure prophylaxis or PrEP, a method by which HIV is prevented by taking medicine pre-emptively, in case of exposure to the virus that causes AIDS. Smith studied the impact of PrEP on HIV positive rates in other underrepresented U.S. populations, including transgender communities. Another tremendous contribution of hers was the publication of CDC's HIV Preexposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) Guidelines, which were updated last year under her leadership. They are a widely cited resource for clinicians, public health practitioners, and the public, and represent the official U.S. clinical practice guidelines for PrEP.
In addition to her research, Smith also advised pharmaceutical companies, non-governmental agencies and government officials on health policy and medical innovation. In countless conferences and other public forums Smith advocated for medical equity for current and formerly incarcerated individuals, indigent communities, unhoused people, immigrants, LGBTQ+ communities, and other marginalized groups.
Smith was an active member of the Baha'i Faith since she was 11 years old, and as an adult she served in leadership positions with the religious community in every city she lived in. She also occasionally spoke at Baha'i conferences and toured for several summers with the Baha'i Freedom Choir.
Dr. Smith passed away from as yet unknown causes on October 31, 2022, just a few days before her 73rd birthday. She is survived by two children, Carrie "CB" Smith-Dahl, a filmmaker based in Oakland, California, and Ian Smith Dahl, a web developer and artist and his spouse Stephanie Wagner, an attorney, in Chicago, Illinois: and 4 grandchildren, Cami and Mica Smith-Dahl, and Gabriel and Samuel Smith Dahl.
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