Joie Acosta is a senior behavioral scientist at RAND and a community and cultural psychologist. She has devoted her career to advancing the translation of the sciences of health promotion, preventative care, and community resilience, spending more than 20 years exploring risk and resilience across settings and cultures. She specializes in implementation research and evaluation of health promotion, prevention, and public health projects, with recent work focused on expanding implementation science frameworks and measures to incorporate artificial intelligence and scaling up AI adoption in government settings. She has experience developing and conducting community-based research at the local, state, and national level. She has experience utilizing and developing both qualitative (e.g., interviews, focus groups, case studies) and quantitative methods (e.g., surveys) with a variety of populations, including low-income, low-literacy, and non-English speakers. Her current research bridges traditional implementation science with emerging technologies, examining how AI can be effectively and efficiently integrated into public sector operations. Acosta holds a Ph.D. in community and cultural psychology from the University of Hawai'i.
Education
Ph.D. in community and cultural psychology, University of Hawai'i; M.A. in psychology, University of Hawai'i; B.A. in psychology, University of Richmond
Selected Work
- Acosta, J., Chinman, M., Ebener, P., Malone, P.S., Phillips, A., & Wilks, A., "Evaluation of a Whole-School Change Intervention: Findings from a Two-Year Cluster-Randomized Trial of the Restorative Practices Intervention," Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 48(5), 2019
- Acosta, J., Chinman, M., & Phillips, A. "Promoting Positive Youth Development Through Healthy Middle School Environments," in R. Dimitrova & N. Wiium (Eds.), Handbook of Positive Youth Development in a Global Context - Bridging the Gaps Between Research, Policy, and Practice, Springer, 2021
- Acosta, J., Chinman, M., Ebener, P.A., Malone, P.S., Cannon, J.S., D'Amico, E., "Sustaining an Evidence-Based Program Over Time Moderators of Sustainability and the Role of the Getting to Outcomes® Implementation Support Intervention," Prevention Science, 21, 2021
- Acosta, Joie D., Douglas Yeung, and Sana Zakaria, Centering Equity in the Implementation of Emerging Digital Health Technologies, RAND Corporation (PE-A1782-1), 2024
- Acosta, J., Chandra, A., Yeung, D., Nelson, C., Qureshi, N., Blagg, T., & Martin, L., "What data should be included in a modern public health data system," Big Data, 2022
- Acosta, J., Weden, M., & Faherty, L., "Using Longitudinal Surveillance of Unemployment Claims During Public Health Emergencies to Provide Timely and Granular Data on the Social Determinants of Health," Public Health Reports, 139(5), 2024
- Joie D. Acosta and Sara Hughes, "How to scale up AI in government," Governing, 2025
- Acosta, Joie D., Sara Hughes, and Jessica Jensen, Governing the Unknown: Insights from a RAND Workshop on Managing Polycrises and Catastrophic Risk, RAND Corporation (PE-A4610-1), 2026