David Cotton
David Cotton is a vice president of Public Health Research and Evaluation in the Public Health Department at NORC. Cotton brings 30 years of experience leading organizations that provide evaluation, research, training, and technical assistance to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institute of Health (NIH), the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), and other US Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) agencies, foundations, and academic partners. At NORC, he works with partners across health departments to foster continued excellence in program evaluation and prevention projects.
Prior to his work at NORC, Cotton was the senior vice president responsible for the public health, health sciences, behavioral health, and survey research at ICF. He led an extensive portfolio of work for federal, foundation, and university clients, which included development of large national surveys, longitudinal multisite evaluations, and large-scale evaluation and policy technical assistance programs supporting national grant programs.
During his time at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) prior to joining ICF (then Macro International), the focus of his work was in the application of behavioral and social science to HIV prevention efforts. These activities included the development and evaluation of multiple, integrated intervention strategies using both community-level and facility-based approaches.
Cotton has co-authored 19 journal articles and presented more than 50 papers at national and international conferences. His peer-reviewed work has appeared in Public Health Reports, The Annual Review of Public Health, AIDS, New Directions for Evaluation, among others. Cotton is a founding member of the Atlanta-Area Evaluation Association.