Flavio Marsiglia is a Regents Professor at the School of Social Work in Arizona State University. He is the founder and director of the Global Center for Applied Health Research. The Global Center conducts intervention health research in partnership with universities and communities in Burundi, China, Guatemala, Israel, Kenya, Mexico, Spain, Taiwan and Uruguay.

Professor Marsiglia is the principal investigator of the Specialized Center (U54) grant on health disparities research at the Southwest Interdisciplinary Research Center (SIRC). Marsiglia’s research on cultural diversity and youth substance use is widely recognized, highly influential in the prevention field, and credited with a measurable reduction in drug use and other high-risk behaviors among youth in Arizona, across the US and in other countries. He has developed and tested culturally grounded interventions to prevent substance abuse especially among Latino and other minority populations of the Southwest, including the school-based “keepin’it REAL” substance-abuse model prevention program. He is the principal investigator of a Mexico-based R01 NIDA/NIH funded study to culturally adapt and test the efficacy of Keepin’it REAL in Mexico. 

Professor Marsiglia has published more than 170 peer-reviewed journal articles that have significantly advanced knowledge about Latino adolescent risk and protective factors and the relationship between acculturation, health and mental health. He is the co-author with Stephen Kulis & Stephanie Lechuga-Pena of the widely adopted textbook “Diversity, Oppression and Change: Culturally Grounded Social Work.” In 2021, Oxford University Press published its third edition. Marsiglia has received numerous recognitions and awards. Most recently, the Society for Prevention Research selected him and his collaborators in Mexico and the U.S. to receive the 2018 International Research Collaboration Award, he was the recipient of a 2018 Fulbright Specialist Fellowship in Sevilla-Spain, and received the 2018 Life Achievement Award for his contributions to health and mental health research and practice from the National Association of Social Workers’ Foundation.