Additional Titles & Roles
- Director, PGY2 Substance Use Disorders Rotation
- Assistant Professor of Public Health
Education & Training
- Residency: Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, 2022
- M.P.H.: Mount Sinai School of Medicine, 2018
- M.D.: Mount Sinai School of Medicine, 2018
- B.A.: Columbia University, 2014
Major Awards
- Parker Young Investigator Award, WUSM, 2024
- WUSM Dept. of Psychiatry Excellence in Teaching Award, 2023
- ASAM Ruth Fox Scholarship, 2023
- CPDD Travel Award for Early Career Investigators; ASAM NIDA Young Investigator Award; ASCP New Investigator Award, AMERSA Travel Award, 2022
- Eli Robins Award for excellence in research, teaching and clinical psychiatry, WUSM, 2022
- APA Psychiatric Research Fellowship; APA Research Colloquium for Junior Psychiatrist Investigators, 2022
Areas of Clinical Interest
Substance use disorders
Research Interests
Kevin specializes in using routinely-collected health care data to study mental health treatment gaps in populations underrepresented in conventional human subjects research. He has a particularly strong interest in studying disparities in psychiatric diagnoses and the rational prescribing and deprescribing of controlled substances (i.e., prescription stimulants, opioids, benzodiazepines). Kevin’s lead-author research has been published in journals such as the American Journal of Psychiatry, Obstetrics & Gynecology, Nature Mental Health, and multiple BMJ and JAMA network publications. He has served on study section/grant review panels for NIH, CPDD, and WashU ICTS and received a 2024 JAMA Psychiatry top reviewer award. For more information: https://sites.wustl.edu/kevinxulab/about-the-principal-investigator/
Recent Publications
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Narrowing differences in the rate of alcohol-related acute care admissions in the United States between women versus men, 2016–2023
Xu, K. Y., Bello, J. K., Buss, J. L., Steinle, J. T., Shankar, S., Greenfield, S. F., Grucza, R. A., Schiff, D. M. & Martin, C. E., Mar 2026, In: Alcohol: Clinical and Experimental Research. 50, 3, e70279.
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Prescribing Trends in Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 Medications Among Pregnant and Postpartum Persons
Lessard, C., Cary, C., In, A., Steinle, J., Lin, B. Y., Kablinger, A. S., Grucza, R. A., Bello, J. K., Galati, B. M., Kimmel, M., Bruno, A. M., Kelly, J. C. & Xu, K. Y., Mar 2026, In: Obstetrics and gynecology. 147, 3, p. 290-292 3 p.
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Pre- and Postoperative Prescription of Opioids and Benzodiazepines in the US
Zhao, A. Y., Parel, P. M., Maust, D. T., Sala-Rabanal, M., Grucza, R. A., Park, T. W., Pennington, B. R. T., Nunley, R. M., Avidan, M. S., Tang, V. L., Lenze, E. J., Gu, A. & Xu, K. Y., Feb 1 2026, In: Journal of the American College of Surgeons. 242, 2, p. 322-334 13 p.
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Patient Profiles of Buprenorphine Initiators in General Healthcare Settings: A Latent Class Approach
Grucza, R., Salas, J., Xu, K. Y., Bello, J. K., Gebauer, S. C., Veeramachaneni, K., Rottnek, F. & Scherrer, J. F., 2026, (Accepted/In press) In: Journal of general internal medicine.
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A temporary spike: Investigating Lennox–Gastaut syndrome incidence in the US following FDA approval of cannabidiol
Marcinski Nascimento, K. J., Li, Y., Lin, B. Y., Dixon-Salazar, T., Perry, M. S., Xu, K. Y. & Nascimento, F. A., 2026, (Accepted/In press) In: Epileptic Disorders.