Archived Events

Please see also archived presentations from Methods Core Seminars.

CAPS Town HallSpeaker: Helena Kwakwa, MD, MPH

 Dr.Helena Kwakwa will discuss the need for outreach, education and testing for the black immigrant community in addressing HIV disparities for minority populations. She will describe the current status of HIV/AIDS in Philadelphia, the black immigrant profile living in Philadelphia, the findings from a Rapid Testing Program at the city health centers that paved the way for a community based program for the immigrant black community. She will also explore the successes and barriers of conducting a community based outreach program within a traditionally hidden population.

Dr.Kwakwa, MD, MPH is the Director for HIV Clinical Services in 8 federally qualified health centers operated by the Philadelphia Department of Public Health. She has extensive experience in internal medicine, HIV/AIDS, and immigrant health. In 2007, she initiated a Rapid Testing Program at the health centers in an effort to normalize HIV testing at clinical settings. She has received funding from Gilead Sciences since 2011 to develop and implement the African Diaspora Health Initiative, a community based program that involves collaboration with the African and Caribbean community organizations, churches, and community centers to provide health education and screenings and increase HIV testing among black immigrants. She is also the director of a retention in care program, Engaging HIV Patients in Care (EHPIC), that is aimed at linking and retaining HIV new patients, and loosely linked patients in care at the health centers.

 12:00 – 1:00 pm — 50 Beale Street/13^th floor/McKusick Conference Room

 Speaker: Professor John de Wit, MSc, PhD Director, National Centre in HIV Social Research, The University of New South Wales, Sydney , Australia

 HIV-related stigma and discrimination among gay men has remained largely under-researched. Also, there generally is a lack of research that directly compares the HIV-related stigma experienced by people living with HIV and the stigma expressed by people not living with HIV. An online community survey undertaken among 1,258 gay men in Australia finds evidence for a serostatus divide among gay men that mostly plays out in in the sexual domain. An important contribution of this study is its comparison and cross-validation of reports of experienced and stigma, which was enabled by a novel stigma measure informed by theory and research.

 John de Wit is Professor and Director of the National Centre in HIV Social Research at the University of New South Wales, Sydney. Previously he worked at Utrecht University, The Netherlands, where he became involved in behavioural research related to HIV among gay men in the late 1980s. John’s broad research interest encompass sexual risk taking, testing and screening, HIV prevention, sexual health promotion, health communication and treatment-based HIV prevention. His research is mostly concerned with contributing to a theory-based understanding of behavior that informs effective programs and policies, collaborating closely with community and health sector partners.

 12:00 – 1:00 pm

50 Beale/13^th floor/McKusick Conf. Rm.

Speaker: Edwin Charlebois, PhD, MPH

 1)  The “Baby Cure” from Session 10 – Paper #48LB 

2)  Project Accept Findings from Session 3 - Paper #30

3)  Fun with Phylogenetics from Session 27 and others 

Speaker: Hyman Scott, MD

 1) North and South: Epi and Engagement in Care – Session 25

2) Preventing HIV/AIDS in the US – Session 18

3) Cascade of Care – Session 31

 Speaker: Jonathan Volk, MD

 1) MSM in the developing world

2) HIV prevention: the VOICE trial, novel PrEP strategies & condoms

3) A brief update of antiretrovirals in the pipeline and transmitted drug resistance

 12:00 – 1:00 pm

50 Beale/13^th floor/McKusick Conf. Rm.

 

 

Speaker: Susan Philip, MD, MPH

Rates of syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia have all increased in men who have sex with men in San Francisco from 2009-2012.  At the same time, HIV incidence appears to be decreasing. Have HIV prevention strategies such as treatment as prevention and seroadaptation uncoupled the traditional links between HIV prevention and STD Prevention?  This Town Hall will focus on public health implications for San Francisco, and on how the current integration of the Population Health and Prevention Division of SFDPH will aim to address both HIV and STD public health prevention needs in San Francisco.

 Susan Philip, MD, MPH, is the Director of the STD Prevention and Control Services Section of the San Francisco Department of Health.  She is also an Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at UCSF and practices HIV primary care at City Clinic, San Francisco’s municipal STD clinic. She is the Board Chair-Elect of the National Coalition of STD Directors, and the Past President of the California STD Controllers Association.

 As STD Controller for San Francisco, she is responsible for monitoring the epidemiology of STDs, maintaining clinical services at City Clinic, and developing efforts and policies to maximize sexual and reproductive health for all San Franciscans.

12:00 – 1:00 pm – 50 Beale/13^th floor/McKusick Conf. Rm.

 PSI/Myanmar Researchers:

   Dr. Tin Aung

   Dr. Hnin Su Su Khin

   Dr. Han Win Htat

   Hnin Nwe Nwe Thant 

Since 2008, Population Services International (PSI) Myanmar has been delivering integrated health services to low-income populations in urban and rural environments in Myanmar.  The Sun Quality Health Network is made up of private physicians who PSI/Myanmar trains and monitors on a variety of health services. The Network aims to improve accessibility, quality, equity and cost-effectiveness for Myanmar’s low-income populations. In 2009, PSI/Myanmar partnered with UCSF’s Global Health Group to evaluate the Network and has found significant evidence for improved quality, population-level health, pro-poor performance, and cost-effectiveness.

 Dr. Tin Aung, Dr. Hnin Su Su Khin, Dr. Han Win Htat, and Hnin Nwe Nwe Thant, will present highlights from their current research including:

1)     sustained improvements in quality of pediatric malaria treatment after training community health workers

2)     availability and quality of anti-malarial drugs in private outlets

3)     incremental costs for launching a new health product

4)     understanding a total market approach for condom use

Dr. Tin Aung, MD is Director of Strategic Information Department at PSI in Myanmar. He oversees PSI/Myanmar’s research portfolio on HIV prevention, reproductive health and STI treatment, and malaria prevention products.

 12:00 – 1:00 pm — 50 Beale Street | 13^th Floor | McKusick Conference Room

Dr. Susan Scheer will present data from routinely collected HIV surveillance activities in San Francisco and demonstrate how it can be used to measure and evaluate HIV testing, engagement in HIV care, and personal and public health outcomes. She will present recent analyses of surveillance data that demonstrate the application of surveillance data to the emerging theme of treatment as prevention for reducing morbidity, mortality, and transmission.  Analyses include the spectrum of HIV care cascade, trends in HIV treatment initiation, linkage to HIV care and viral suppression and HIV incidence estimates.

Susan Scheer, PhD, MPH is Director of the HIV Epidemiology Section at the San Francisco Department of Public Health.  In that role, she manages all HIV/AIDS surveillance activities in San Francisco including core and incidence surveillance.  She has worked in HIV/AIDS surveillance since 1999 and has been conducting HIV research for almost 20 years. Dr. Scheer also serves as the Principal Investigator for the Medical Monitoring Project, the Case Surveillance Base Sampling project and HIV Incidence Surveillance. The San Francisco HIV Epidemiology Section works closely with other HIV surveillance jurisdictions nationally on capacity building and shares HIV surveillance best practices both nationally and internationally.

12:00 – 1:00 pm

50 Beale/13th floor/McKusick

Speaker:  Sheri Weiser, MD, MPH

Dr. Sheri Weiser will discuss the intersection between the food insecurity and HIV/AIDS epidemics domestically and internationally.  She will draw upon her work in San Francisco, Uganda and other settings to describe the mechanisms through which food insecurity contributes to both HIV acquisition risk and worse HIV treatment outcomes among individuals already infected.  She will end with a brief overview of a novel multisectoral agricultural intervention in rural Kenya aimed to improve food security, HIV health outcomes and gender empowerment.

Sheri Weiser, MD, MPH, is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Division of HIV/AIDS at San Francisco General Hospital and at the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies.  Her research uses both qualitative and quantitative methodologies to examine structural barriers to HIV prevention, antiretroviral therapy adherence, and HIV treatment outcomes. She is particularly interested in the role of sustainable food production strategies in improving HIV care delivery to underserved populations. She has been the principal investigator on 14 domestic and international grants related to the intersecting epidemics of food insecurity and HIV/AIDS, including an NIH R-01 grant, and an NIH R-34 pilot intervention grant.

12:00 – 1:00 pm

50 Beale/13th floor/McKusick Conference Room

Speaker:  Emily Arnold, PhD, MPH

The Ballroom study was a 5 year investigation of the social support networks, conceptualized as houses and gay families, within the San Francisco Bay Area House Ball Community (HBC).  Several years of ethnographic research which included multiple in-depth interviews with key members of the HBC allowed us to refine and adapt existing measures of social support to inform the development of a cross sectional survey.  Thanks to the extraordinary efforts of a dedicated research team, we were able to survey 274 members of the Bay Area HBC to gain a better understanding of the impact of HIV-related social support provided within the houses and gay families on HIV-related risk behavior.

Emily Arnold is an Assistant Professor at the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies in the Department of Medicine at UCSF. Trained as a medical anthropologist, Dr. Arnold has come to embrace mixed methods research study designs, benefitting from the work of her esteemed colleagues who can find a p-value worth reporting. Much of her research involves community collaborative approaches, and she enjoys working at the intersections of public health and anthropology.

12:00 – 1:00 pm

50 Beale/13th floor/McKusick Conf. Rm.

Speaker:  Jae Sevelius, PhD

Transgender women are one of the most highly impacted groups in the HIV epidemic to date, yet they are also severely underserved by current prevention and treatment efforts.  With K08 funding from NIH/NIMH, Dr. Jae Sevelius has developed a conceptual model that examines how unmet need for gender affirmation contributes to risk behavior and diminished self-care among transgender women, with a focus on transgender women of color.

The Model of Gender Affirmation posits that in the context of transphobia, a high need for gender affirmation among transgender women, coupled with low access to gender affirmation, results in an unmet need for gender affirmation, which constitutes identity threat. Transwomen attempt to reduce identity threat (i.e. meet their needs for gender affirmation) by seeking affirmation in contexts that can pose health risks and undervalue important health seeking behaviors. Qualitative and quantitative preliminary support for this model will be presented.

Dr. Sevelius is an Assistant Professor with the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies and the Center of Excellence for Transgender Health, UCSF.  With a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology and a Master’s degree in Women’s and Gender Studies, Dr. Sevelius has a passion for investigating how gender, race, and stigma interact to impact mental and physical health.

12:00 – 1:00 pm

50 Beale/13th floor/McKusick Conf. Rm.

Speaker: Carol Dawson-Rose, PhD, MSN, RN

12:00 – 1:00 PM

50 Beale/13th floor/McKusick Conference Room