UCLA Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention (CHPDP)
Recent Events/Lectures/Manuscripts
Addiction Journal and its Commissioned Material
Dr. Peter Miller, PhD, Commissioning Editor for ADDICTION
An Update on a Syndemics Approach to HIV Prevention among Gay Men
Dr. Ronald Stall, Graduate School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh
Developing Evidence for Culturally Relevant Interventions for Methamphetamine Dependence
Steven Shoptaw, Ph.D., UCLA, Family Medicine and Psychiatry
Initial Findings from a Respondent Driven Sample of High Risk Individuals with Significant Economic and Healthcare Disparities in Los Angeles
Methamphetamine, HIV and Homelessness in Los Angeles County
Family Medicine Research Seminar
Steven Shoptaw, Ph.D.
Dr. Steve Shoptaw and Pamina Gorbach are leading a study on the sexual and drug using networks of men who have sex with men and use methamphetamine (i.e. Project FLOW). The collaborating five research centers and investigators include Research Triangle Institute (RTI), Bill Zule, PI; the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Steve Shoptaw, PI, Pamina Gorbach, Co-PI; University of Illinois, Chicago (UIC), Larry Ouellet, PI; Yale University, Robert Heimer, PI; and The Biomedical Center (BMC), St. Petersburg, Russia, Andrei Kozlov, Co-PI (Working with Yale University).
Fast Food and Fast Sex: Sex, Risk, and Identity among Non-Gay-Identified African American MSM
Objectives
To better understand the role that sex plays in the lives of African American men who have sex men and women (MSMW), we draw analogies to the role of food in participant's lives.
Methods
We analyzed transcripts from five focus group discussions initiated to inform the development of an HIV prevention intervention -- three with 29 HIV-infected men and two with 10 men who were HIV negative or unknown status by self report.
Findings
Along with HIV, participants described chronic, diet-related diseases as primary health concerns in African American men. Participants often emphasized the sensual aspects of sex, which they sometimes viewed condoms as taking away from. Participants pointed out sexual anxieties and self-perceptions that were brought about by stereotypes of Black male sexual performance. Some described sex with female partners that was complicated, difficult, and unfulfilling compared to easy, straightforward, and fulfilling ("Fast Food") sex with male partners.
Conclusions
Given the central and varied role that sex plays in the lives of African American MSMW at risk for HIV infection or transmission, prevention approaches should also be varied, culturally appropriate, historically informed, realistic, and address multiple levels in their approach (e.g., the individual, couple, network, and societal context). Furthermore, lessens may be learned from the current public health approaches to dietary change that intervene at multiple levels.
John K. Williams, M.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA. He completed his M.D. degree at the State University of NY at Syracuse, his Psychiatry residency at the University of Hawaii and an NIMH sponsored two-year HIV/AIDS research postdoctoral fellowship at UCLA. He has expertise in HIV risk reduction in diverse populations especially among MSM and MSMW of color and mental health disparities.
Nina Harawa Ph.D., MPH is an Assistant Professor with the Charles R. Drew University of Science and Medicine and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at UCLA. Trained as an epidemiologist, her research involves both documenting and understanding trends in the distribution of HIV infection and developing effective HIV prevention interventions. She has conducted and led studies examining the prevalence of HIV infection and risky behaviors in a variety of high-risk populations, including men who have sex with men, the homeless, sexually transmitted disease clinic attendees, recent jail arrestees, female sex workers, and male-to-female transgenders. She has ongoing HIV prevention research studies for African American men who have sex with men and women and for African American women in partnerships with high-risk men. She is also currently working to examine HIV risk and condom use in a jail unit for gay and transgender males.
Tikking Teens: Methamphetamine Use and HIV Risk Among Females in the Western Cape of South Africa
Topic: A series of woman-focused studies have been conducted in South Africa for the last 5 years. These studies in addition to focus groups with men have demonstrated increasing methamphetamine use, violence, sex exchange, gang rape and increasing incidence of HIV in the Western Cape and led to a survey with younger females at risk in the townships communities. A total of 450 female school drop outs were surveyed on health behaviors and substance abuse. This lecture will share the formative development and quantitative data of the youth study.
Dr. Wendee Wechsberg is the Senior Director of the Substance Abuse Treatment Evaluations and Interventions Research Program at RTI International. She is also Adjunct Professor at the School of Public Health, UNC-CH, Associate Professor at the School of Medicine, Duke University.
She has served as principal investigator/project director on studies with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), and the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). She has been a reviewer for NIDA, NIAAA, and NIH AIDS and behavioral committees; more recently she has reviewed international training and CDC grants.
Dr. Wechsberg collaborates with numerous faculty and researchers in institutions of higher learning in the United States and abroad and serves as a consultant to various national and international studies. She has published in the areas of gender and ethnicity, outreach, methadone treatment, HIV risk, and women substance abusers.