Sarah Bacon, PhD, is the associate director for the Office of Strategy and Innovation (OSI) within CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC). In this role, Dr. Bacon provides center-wide leadership and coordination of NCIPC’s strategic priorities, including ACEs, overdose, and suicide. She also oversees, supports, and coordinates other center-wide initiatives, such as data science and health equity.

Dr. Sarah Bacon is Senior Advisor on Adverse Childhood Experiences and supports the Center from her position in the Office of Strategy and Innovation (OSI). In this role, she provides strategic leadership and coordination across a range of injury and violence topics as they relate to Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). She also ensures strategic collaboration throughout CDC and with external agencies focusing on ACEs. Sarah is focused on advancing the evidence of effectiveness for prevention of ACEs and mitigation of their impact, and on ensuring that the science is translated into action in communities across the country.Sarah is a practice-oriented prevention scientist with experience spanning the fields of law enforcement, academia, and public health. Across these disciplines and different domains, the common thread is her commitment to using data and science to make communities safer. Sarah began her time at CDC in 2010 in the Division of Violence Prevention, where she was the lead scientist for the National Centers of Excellence in Youth Violence Prevention, a strategic initiative for implementing and evaluating violence prevention strategies in high-burden communities. In 2015 she joined the Division of Overdose Prevention, where she led the state-based overdose prevention programmatic efforts. She joined OSI in November of 2019.

Program Director for Prevention for States and the Data-Driven Prevention Initiative, two state-based opioid overdose prevention initiatives at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).