Francesca Beaudoin

About

Dr. Francesca L. Beaudoin is an accomplished physician-scientist and public health leader with a background as an emergency physician and clinical epidemiologist. She is a national expert in addressing opioid use disorders and pain management, focusing on evidence-based and community-centered approaches to substance use and recovery. Her work includes pioneering innovative solutions such as serving patients through a mobile drug recovery unit in partnership with CODAC Behavioral Healthcare, delivering treatment, medical care, and counseling to underserved communities in Rhode Island. She has contributed extensively to research, authoring over 190 peer-reviewed articles, and has served on notable advisory committees including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Anesthetic and Analgesic Drug Products Advisory Committee. Dr. Beaudoin has also served as a Senior Medical Advisor to the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, providing expert review of treatments such as gene therapies and GLP-1 medications for obesity. Her leadership roles at Brown University include serving as chair of the Department of Epidemiology, academic dean, and currently as interim dean of the School of Public Health, where she leads the school's strategy to advance education, research, and policy translation in public health. She continues to practice medicine, holding appointments at Brown University Health and CODAC Behavioral Healthcare.

Research topics

• Psychiatry
• Psychology
• Medicine
• Internal medicine
• Emergency medicine
• Pathology
• Neuroscience
• Clinical psychology

Selected publications

• Prognostic neuroimaging biomarkers of trauma-related psychopathology: resting-state fMRI shortly after trauma predicts future PTSD and depression symptoms in the AURORA study

  Neuropsychopharmacology · 2021 · 64 citations

  DOI

• Development and Validation of a Model to Predict Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Major Depression After a Motor Vehicle Collision

  JAMA Psychiatry · 2021 · 43 citations

  Importance: A substantial proportion of the 40 million people in the US who present to emergency departments (EDs) each year after traumatic events develop posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or major depressive episode (MDE). Accurately identifying patients at high risk in the ED would facilitate the targeting of preventive interventions. Objectives: To develop and validate a prediction tool based on ED reports after a motor vehicle collision to predict PTSD or MDE 3 months later. Design, Sett…

  DOI

• Sequential decreases in basolateral amygdala response to threat predict failure to recover from PTSD

  Neuropsychopharmacology · 2025-05-03 · 2 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Dismantling open-label placebos and their rationales: A remote 4-arm randomized controlled trial protocol

  Contemporary Clinical Trials · 2025-07-15 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access

  OBJECTIVE: To explore the effect of rationales on placebos described honestly as inactive pills, (open-label placebos; OLPs) on chronic pain. DESIGN: Dismantling 4-arm randomized controlled trial. SETTING: Remote study with United-States residents. SUBJECTS: Chronic pain patients aged 18 to 89. METHODS: We plan to recruit 340 subjects, randomized before consent (Zelen randomization procedure) into one of 4 groups. Participants in a no-treatment group will not receive any OLPs. Participants in th…

  PublisherDOI

• Early life adversity increases risk for chronic post-traumatic pain, data from humans and rodents

  Pain · 2025-06-18 · 2 citations

  article

  ABSTRACT: Traumatic stress exposures (TSEs) are common in life. Although most individuals recover after a TSE, a substantial subset develop adverse post-traumatic neuropsychiatric sequelae such as chronic post-traumatic musculoskeletal pain (CPMP). Vulnerability factors for CPMP are poorly understood, which hinders identification of high-risk individuals for targeted interventions. One known vulnerability factor for many pain types is exposure to early life adversity (ELA), but few studies have…

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Mobile Peer Support for Opioid Use Disorders: Refinement of an Innovative Machine Learning Tool

  NIH · $225k · 2019–2020

• Identifying optimal buprenorphine dosing for OUD treatment and prevention of overdose

  NIH · $425k · 2022–2024

Frequent coauthors

• Phyllis L. Hendry

  University of Florida

  317 shared

• Paul I. Musey

  Indiana University School of Medicine

  317 shared

• Sophia Sheikh

  Florida College

  309 shared

• Niels K. Rathlev

  University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School

  305 shared

• León D. Sánchez

  Brigham and Women's Faulkner Hospital

  297 shared

• Gari D. Clifford

  Emory University

  272 shared

• Laura Germine

  266 shared

• Robert M. Domeier

  265 shared

Education

• M.D.

  Brown University

• Ph.D.

  Brown University

Similar researchers at Brown University

• Peter Montih-106
• Kate Careyh-100
• Christopher Kahlerh-96