Academic Credentials
  • MHS, Biostatistics, Johns Hopkins University, 2013
  • Ph.D., International Health, Johns Hopkins University, 2013
  • M.P.H., Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, 2004
  • B.S., Biology, Colgate University, 1999
Professional Honors
  • Professorial Lecturer, Global Health, George Washington University, 2019 - present
  • Delta Omega Scholarship Award, 2011
  • Johns Hopkins Center for Global Health Field Research Award, 2011
  • National Institutes of Health Training Grant in International Maternal and Child Health, 2008-2010
  • Postdoctoral Scholar, Global Disease Epidemiology and Control, Johns Hopkins University, 2014
Professional Affiliations
  • International Epidemiological Association
  • American College of Epidemiology
  • American Society for Nutrition
  • Institute of Food Technologists

Dr. Scrafford has over 20 years of multi-disciplinary experience in epidemiological methods, applied statistics, and risk assessment to evaluate the human health effects of food contaminants and additives, nutrients, and environmental compounds in the U.S. as well as Europe and other international settings. She has designed, conducted, and analyzed data from national, market basket, customized surveys on food consumption patterns and has experience in using that data to conduct dietary risk assessments for food ingredients, nutrients, heavy metals, and contaminants. 

Dr. Scrafford has developed GRAS notifications, Food Additive Petitions (FAPs), and Color Additive Petitions (CAPs) in support of pre-market approval submissions to the U.S. FDA as well as regulatory submissions to other international authoritative bodies by providing evaluations of the human safety data and conducting dietary exposure assessments. The exposure assessments are based on a variety of large databases from the US and other countries including NHANES (National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey), the United Kingdom's National Diet and Nutrition Survey (NDNS), EFSA's Comprehensive European Food Consumption Database, and USAID's Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS).  As part of these submissions, Dr. Scrafford communicates complex scientific information directly with federal regulators and other key stakeholders.  

Dr. Scrafford also provides technical and expert support related to dietary exposure to food toxins and contaminants including lead, cadmium, inorganic arsenic, and acrylamide. Dr. Scrafford has expertise in designing sampling protocols with the objective to determine levels of components and contaminants in food products currently in the market place. Dr. Scrafford is responsible for analyzing the survey results to estimate the concentration of the contaminants in the food that is combined with consumption data to estimate consumer exposure to these compounds through the diet.  As part of this work, Dr. Scrafford has presented and testified on topics related to statistics, dietary consumption patterns, dietary exposure, and risk assessment.

Dr. Scrafford has expertise in the synthesis of epidemiological evidence to both quantitatively and qualitatively evaluate causal associations between dietary and environmental exposures and health outcomes.  With a background in epidemiological methods and analysis, Dr. Scrafford has expertise in the synthesis of epidemiological evidence to both quantitatively and qualitatively evaluate causal associations between dietary and environmental exposures and health outcomes. Scrafford has evaluated study protocols for clients conducting clinical trials designed to measure the association between novel food and dietary supplement products on specific health outcomes including weight loss and gastrointestinal health in support of safety and efficacy evaluations. She has also collaborated with academic institutions to investigate the association between dietary patterns and health outcomes using data from ongoing prospective cohort studies.