About

As an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of North Carolina, Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, Dr. Rutstein’s research focuses on translation of efficacious interventions into clinical implementation in resource-limited settings via behavioral and biomedical clinical trials and cost-effectiveness modeling. Dr. Rutstein has worked to develop HIV and sexually transmitted infection prevention and treatment practices and policies that efficiently prioritize scarce resources, applying models of differentiated service delivery to examine new implementation strategies for HIV prevention and treatment programming. Her modeling work includes a diverse collection of decision-analytic and predictive models, the outcomes for which have helped guide WHO policies for HIV testing and case finding.

In the news

• 

  Scoping Review Highlights Wide Variation in How PrEP “Persistence” Is Defined, Complicating HIV Prevention Policy and Research

  Chapel Hill, NC — A new comprehensive scoping review led by researchers at the UNC Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases finds definitions of “persistence” in HIV pre‑exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) research vary widely across studies, making it difficult to compare outcomes, evaluate interventions, and inform public health decision‑making. If taken consistently and as prescribed, … Read more

• 

  Turning a Hospital Stay into a Meaningful Bridge Back to HIV Care

  Chapel Hill, NC – Less than half of people with HIV in the U.S. stay consistently connected to outpatient HIV care—a gap that limits access to lifesaving medications and increases the risk of HIV transmission. Hospitalizations are especially common among people who are already disconnected from care. Among the nearly 200,000 hospitalizations among persons with … Read more

• 

  Rutstein Receives Multi-Year Grant to Study Field-Based Care Delivery in North Carolina, Targeting People with HIV Who Are Out of Care

  Antiretroviral therapy (ART) for viral suppression in people living with HIV (PWH) improves life expectancy and interrupts transmission. And new long-acting ART injectables have become a convenient treatment, helping overcome the burden of pills and the stigma associated with taking daily medication. But while there has been a 68% reduction in AIDS-related deaths since 2010, … Read more

• 

  Webinar: Global Threats, Local Actions

  “We at the Institute for Global Health and infectious diseases are a large community of multi-disciplinary investigators,” said Sonia Napravnik, PhD, in her webinar welcome message during University Research Week. “And essentially, we all focus on improving health globally and locally, here in North Carolina and across the US.” “Our focus is really on research, … Read more

Education