Author Archives: Rita Kazezian

In a pilot study, Lauren M. Hill, PhD, and  Benjamin H. Chi, MD, MSc, evaluated a combination adherence support package for HIV antiretroviral therapy, for pregnant and breastfeeding women living with HIV in Malawi, which included an adapted motivational interviewing-informed counseling approach (Integrated Next Step Counselling, iNSC) and an optional...

Improving adolescent health and well-being is a key policy priority in countries with a high HIV burden, because adolescents have lower rates of treatment coverage, viral load suppression, and survival compared with others. Joseph D. Tucker, MD, PhD, AM, conducted a study aimed at identifying innovative ideas from young people...

The CDC’s Social Network Strategy (SNS) is an evidence-supported approach to increase reach for HIV testing among members of marginalized populations. Carol Golin, MD, and Ann M. Dennis, MD, MS, explored key barriers and facilitators prior to implementing an enhanced SNS (eSNS) to increase access to a broader range of HIV...

Adolescents and young adults (AYAs, 14–24 years old) have the highest rates of drug use in most low- and middle-income countries. Joseph D. Tucker, MD, PhD, AM, performed a secondary data analysis of the baseline survey of the ‘I-TEST’ study involving AYAs in Nigeria. The two primary outcomes of interest...

A new study led by Jean-Claude Mwanza, MD, MPH, PhD, characterizes ophthalmological manifestations and associated inflammatory markers in Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) survivors in the post-treatment era. Researchers concluded that optic neuropathy was the only neuro-ophthalmologic abnormality in treated EVD survivors. Uveitis was far less frequent than reported in West...

Empowerment is increasingly being recognized as an important outcome of psychosocial interventions. As low-resource settings move to address the treatment and social service gap for people living with schizophrenia (PLWS), interventions can monitor impacts on empowerment. A new study, conducted by Joy Noel Baumgartner, PhD, MSSW, explores empowerment and associated...

The field of global health law has evolved over the past decade to describe new legal and policy instruments that apply to a changing set of public health threats, non-state actors, and regulatory norms that structure the global response to public health challenges. This special issue by Benjamin Mason Meier,...

Recent studies in humans and mice have found that meningococcal outer membrane vesicle-containing vaccines (OMV) induce cross-species immune responses against gonococci and are associated with protection. To study this, Andreea Waltmann, PhD, immunized mice with two meningococcal OMV-containing vaccines known to accelerate clearance of N. gonorrhoeae, 4CMenB and OMV from...

HIV cure strategies that aim to induce viral reactivation for immune clearance leverage latency reversal agents to modulate host pathways, which directly or indirectly facilitate viral reactivation. Inhibition of BET (bromo and extra-terminal domain) family member BRD4 reverses HIV latency, but enthusiasm for the use of BET inhibitors in HIV...

A collaborative study that included the Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases, UNC Project-Malawi, and the UNC Center For AIDS Research (CFAR), compared the contraceptive effectiveness of a typical-use LNG implant and depot medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA) injectable during efavirenz use. The study included women living with HIV (WLHIV) on...

Globally, transgender and other gender diverse people experience widespread prejudice, discrimination, violence, and other forms of stigma, which contribute to negative health outcomes. Most anti-trans stigma research has been conducted in high-income countries. Measurement of anti-trans stigma in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) is important for understanding and improving the...

The psychological experiences and needs of people with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), who use methadone maintenance treatment and have common mental disorders remain unknown in Hanoi, Vietnam. Due to limited services for common mental disorders, optimal delivery methods for psychotherapy are also unknown. Accordingly, a qualitative study led by Vivian Go,...

Age-related morbidity, including frailty and cardiometabolic disease, has become increasingly prevalent among people living with HIV (PWH), and each frailty characteristic may, independently and synergistically, play a role in cardiometabolic disease. Sonia Napravnik, PhD, conducted a cross-sectional analysis within a longitudinal clinical cohort to evaluate the prevalence of unique frailty...

Retention and adherence to daily oral pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) are critical for effective HIV prevention; however, YMSM exhibit lower rates of both compared to other populations. This is important because young men who have sex with men (YMSM) are at higher risk for HIV, and understanding their challenges can help...

The overdose epidemic remains largely driven by opioids, but the county-level prevalence of opioid misuse is unknown. Without this information, public health and policy responses are limited by a lack of knowledge on the scope of the problem. In a recent study, William Miller, MD, PhD, estimated the Prevalence of...

Pain self-management (PSM) interventions are low-risk, effective interventions for chronic pain that have high potential for scalability. Economic evaluations are a key component of assessing scalability. Claire Farel, MD, MPH, an Assistant Professor of Infectious Diseases in the Department of Medicine, and Sonia Napravnik, PhD, an Associate Professor of Medicine in...

Aging-related co-morbidities are more common in people with HIV compared to people without HIV. And the gut microbiome may play a role in healthy aging; however, this relationship remains unexplored in the context of HIV. Michelle Floris-Moore, MD, MS, co-authored a study led by Brandilyn Peters, PhD, Albert Einstein College...

Malaria rapid diagnostic tests (mRDTs) that detect histidine-rich protein 2 (HRP2) remain the mainstay of falciparum malaria diagnosis in Sub-Saharan Africa. Understanding their test characteristics when used for surveillance in asymptomatic populations is important. Jonathan Juliano, MD, MSPH, Jonathan B. Parr, MD, MPH, Jessica Lin, MD, MSCR, explored the rate of...

KUPAA is a culturally adapted version of Family Psychoeducation (FPE) that has been shown to be beneficial to people living with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders (PLWS), who may experience limitations across multiple functional domains. The current study objective is to identify mechanisms by which the KUPAA intervention reduces disability and improves quality...

In 2023, the Azithromycin Prevention in Labor Use (A-PLUS) trial showed that intrapartum azithromycin reduces maternal sepsis or death in women with planned vaginal delivery in low-resource settings, but whether it reduces maternal infection is unknown. Melissa Bauserman, MD, MPH, DTM&H, and Jackie Patterson, MD, MPH, performed a post hoc...