Alexander Y. Walley MD
Professor, General Internal Medicine
Courtesy Staff Privileges, Medicine
801 Massachusetts Ave | (617) 414-6975alexander.walley@bmc.org
awalley@bu.edu
Sections
General Internal Medicine
Centers
Clinical Addiction Research and Education Unit
Evans Center for Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research
Biography
Dr Walley is Professor of Medicine and an addiction expert at Boston Medical Center and Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine focused on the medical complications of substance use, specifically HIV and overdose. Dr Walley has conducted multiple studies related to the opioid crisis and the integration of addiction specialty care and general medical care. He has served as PI on a CDC-SAMHSA-Epi-AID investigation of the surge in fentanyl-related overdose, a CDC-funded study of the Massachusetts community naloxone program which demonstrated community-level reductions in overdose death rates, and a SAMHSA-funded program that integrated addiction treatment into the clinical care of people with/at risk for HIV. He is principal investigator for CDC and NIH funded studies of community overdose interventions. For the NIH-funded HEALing Communities Study - Massachusetts, he served as the Care Continuum Core Director 2019-2025. He has worked as Co-I with addiction, overdose, and HIV expertise on NIDA and NIAAA-funded clinical trials and cohort studies.
Dr. Walley is a founding director of the Grayken Addiction Medicine Fellowship. From 2011 to 2022, 20 addiction specialists graduated, 6 of whom serve as directors for addiction medicine fellowships, 13 are faculty at medical schools, 9 at Boston University School of Medicine. He was a founding board member and treasurer of the Addiction Medicine Fellowship Director’s Association 2016-2019 and American College of Academic Addiction Medicine (ACAAM) starting in 2019. He is currently the president for ACAAM for 2023-2025. With his mentor, Dr. Jeffrey Samet, he is multi-PI on the NIDA-funded R25 Clinical Addiction Research and Education Program, which supports the Chief Resident and Fellow Immersion Training and the CARE Faculty Scholar programs.
Dr. Walley provides primary care and addiction medicine consultations in the HIV primary care clinic at Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine/BMC. He founded BMC’s inpatient Addiction Consult Service in 2015 and the Faster Paths low-barrier access substance use clinic in 2016. He previously was a site medical director for opioid treatment programs in Boston from 2007 to 2016. He serves as the medical director for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health’s Bureau of Substance Addiction Services, the Overdose Prevention Program, and the SafeSpot Overdose Prevention Hotline. Since 2007, the MDPH program has trained and equipped over 100,000 people in Massachusetts’s communities with naloxone rescue kits, including people at-risk for overdose and their social networks.
Websites
Clinical Addiction Research and Education (CARE) Unit
Grayken Fellowship in Addiction Medicine
Fellow Immersion Training Program in Addiction Medicine
Boston Medical Center Provider Profile
Grayken Fellowship in Addiction Medicine Twitter
Education
Medicine-Internal, MD, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Epidemiology, MSc, Boston University School of Public Health
History and Literature, AB, Harvard College
Publications
Walley AY, Wang J, To C, Duska M, Murray S, Wiggins M, Rolles A, Yan S, Kosakowski S, Bagley SM, Xuan Z, Hyde J, Formica SW. Post-overdose outreach programs in Massachusetts before and after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. J Subst Use Addict Treat. 2025 Dec; 179:209799. PMID: 40939693.
Published on 8/18/2025Zaragoza S, Silcox J, Rapisarda S, Summers C, Case P, To C, Chatterjee A, Walley AY, Komaromy M, Green TC. Correction: Developing a comprehensive inventory to define harm reduction housing. Harm Reduct J. 2025 Aug 18; 22(1):142. PMID: 40826084.
Published on 8/9/2025Paradise RK, Kimmel SD, Nurani A, Desmarais J, O'Malley S, Walley AY, Hoyos-Cespedes A, Clarke J, Taylor S, Dooley D, Bazzi AR. Building connection: overdose survivors' and professional service providers' perspectives on immediate post-overdose care. Int J Drug Policy. 2025 Aug 09; 145:104948. PMID: 40784254.
Published on 8/7/2025Christine PJ, Kimmel SD, Martin SA, Massad C, Walley AY. National Estimates of Opioid Overdose Hospitalizations Resulting in Hypoxic-ischemic Brain Injury. J Gen Intern Med. 2025 Aug 07. PMID: 40775114.
Published on 7/23/2025Chang YG, McMahan VM, Matheson T, Luna Marti X, Robinson M, Rolles A, Kosakowski S, Santos GM, Walley AY, Coffin PO. The Association of Perceived Risk for Opioid Overdose and Subsequent Overdose Among a Cohort of Opioid Overdose Survivors Who Use Nonprescribed Opioids. Subst Use Addctn J. 2025 Jul 23; 29767342251355116. PMID: 40698403.
Published on 7/7/2025Levengood TW, Shaw LC, Zang X, Schackman BR, Walley AY, Urquhart C, Green TC, Chatterjee A, Marshall BDL, Morgan JR. A geospatial analysis of naloxone distribution patterns in the Massachusetts overdose education and naloxone distribution program (MA OEND). Drug Alcohol Depend. 2025 Sep 01; 274:112783. PMID: 40683013.
Published on 6/24/2025Green TC, Silcox J, Zaragoza S, Summers C, Rapisarda S, Kosakowski S, Rolles A, Chatterjee A, Walley A, Komaromy M, Case P. Study Protocol on Rapid Measurement of Novel Harm Reduction Housing on HIV Risk, Treatment Uptake, Drug Use, and Supply. Subst Use Addctn J. 2025 Oct; 46(4):1058-1063. PMID: 40552912.
Published on 6/10/2025Smith RJ, McMahan VM, McCann NC, Kosakowski S, Brennan S, Marti XL, Walley AY, Coffin PO. Emergency medical system response, emergency department visits, and hospital admissions in response to non-fatal opioid overdoses reported by a cohort of overdose survivors in San Francisco and Boston, 2019 - 2022. Drug Alcohol Depend Rep. 2025 Sep; 16:100351. PMID: 40606798.
Published on 6/3/2025Morgan JR, Walley AY. You have to be alive to enjoy the porridge: The role of Goldilocks naloxone dosing in a world of hungry bears. Addiction. 2025 Nov; 120(11):2175-2176. PMID: 40458977.
Published on 6/2/2025Zwick H, O'Dea R, Barocas JA, Flam-Ross JM, Chatterjee A, Walley AY, Harris RA, Schackman BR, White LF, Chrysanthopoulou SA, Assoumou SA, Murphy SM, Morgan JR, Baptiste D, Carroll M, Linas BP. Health and Economic Outcomes of Addressing Encampments of Individuals Using Opioids. JAMA Netw Open. 2025 Jun 02; 8(6):e2517095. PMID: 40577017.
Media Mentions
Published on 10/25/2024
Published on 2/8/2024
Higher-dose naloxone spray didn’t save more lives, researchers find
Published on 10/24/2023
Everything You Need to Know about Narcan
Published on 8/23/2023
Post-overdose outreach programs have ‘police paradox’
Published on 3/29/2023
Can Over-the-Counter Narcan Put an End to Opioid Deaths?
Published on 3/29/2023
Advocates cheer OTC approval for Narcan, but questions remain about price and insurance
Published on 3/28/2023
Can Over-the-Counter Narcan Put an End to Opioid Deaths?
Published on 12/29/2021
The Problems in the Health-Care System Are Epidemic
Published on 11/30/2021
Checking Arrest Warrants Undermines the Goal of Post-Overdose Outreach Visits
Published on 7/9/2021
Why Somerville wants to host the first safe consumption site in the US
View full list of 36 media mentions.