Founder and Principal Consultant
Esser Public Health Consulting, LLC
Peachtree Corners, Georgia
Marissa Esser, PhD, MPH, is the founder and principal consultant at Esser Public Health Consulting, LLC. She is the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Alcohol Program.
Dr. Esser’s research focuses on quantifying the health effects of alcohol consumption and assessing the effectiveness of strategies to reduce alcohol use and associated morbidity and mortality. She has led research to better characterize several alcohol-related harms such as cancer, other drug use, and injuries. Her research has been used to improve methodologies to comprehensively quantify alcohol-attributable deaths in states and nationally, strengthening the evidence base for health policy discussions.
Dr. Esser translates complex data into actionable insights to work toward improved public health outcomes. She has contributed to several federal initiatives, including two reports on alcohol from the U.S. Office of the Surgeon General. In addition, Dr. Esser led the development of CDC’s electronic screening and brief intervention, which was the federal government’s first evidence-based online tool designed to help adults decrease their alcohol use in non-clinical settings. She has also supported the development and expansion of about a dozen statewide alcohol programs, strengthening their capacity to monitor and address alcohol-related harms through a public health approach.
As the founder of Esser Public Health Consulting, LLC, she provides expert technical guidance, scientific consultation, research collaboration, and education, with a primary focus on studying and reducing the adverse impacts of alcohol.
Dr. Esser has authored approximately 50 publications, and her research has been featured by major media outlets such as The New York Times, CBS News, CNN, NPR, and the Associated Press. She received numerous awards from CDC for her scientific research and leadership.
Dr. Esser earned a PhD from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and an MPH from Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health.
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On the Rocks: Fixing Our Fractured Alcohol Policies
Friday, April 24, 2026
10:45 AM - 12:00 PM PT
