Research & Interest

Dr. Cunningham is a Professor of Medicine and Public Health at UCLA. He is board certified in Geriatrics and Internal Medicine, holds an MPH in Epidemiology, and was trained in health services research through the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars program at UCLA. He is a leading investigator in racial and ethnic disparities in care, barriers to care, and health outcomes. He was co-investigator on an NIA-funded study focused on minority elders as part of the Drew-RAND Center on Health and Aging from 1993-1997. He also led the Research Team investigating access to medical care and racial/ethnic disparities in the national HIV Costs and Services Utilization Study (HCSUS), a prospective cohort study of a nationally representative probability sample of 2,864 HIV-infected adults receiving care for HIV in the contiguous United States. He is currently PI of a HRSA-funded Special Project of National Significance (SPNS) where he is conducting a case-management intervention study, which is designed to improve access to care for vulnerable persons with HIV infection. He is also PI of an NIMH-funded study of barriers to future HIV prevention technologies. Dr. Cunningham has authored more than 90 scientific papers many of which address access to HIV care, barriers to medical care, use of HIV services, racial disparities, HIV prevention and health outcomes for persons with HIV/AIDS. He is Director of the Investigator Development Core for the NIA-funded Resource Centers for Minority Aging Research (RCMAR), Director of the Training Core for the NCMHD-funded project Export, and an Associate Director of the newly refunded Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program at UCLA. He teaches courses on race, ethnicity and health, health services organization, and outcomes and effectiveness research. In 2004, Dr. Cunningham was selected for honors in the prestigious American Society for Clinical Investigation.

Selected Publications

• Katz MH, Cunningham WE, Fleishman J, Andersen RM, Kellog T, Bozzette SA, Shapiro MF, “Effect of Case Management on Unmet Needs and Utilization of Medical Care and Medications among HIV-infected Persons.” Annals of Internal Medicine 2001;135 (8, part1): 557-165.

• Gifford AL, Cunningham WE, Heslin KC, Andersen RM, Nakazono T, Lieu DK, Shapiro MF, Bozzette SA. "Participation in research and access to experimental treatments by HIV- infected patients." New England Journal of Medicine May 2002; 346(18); 1373-82.

• Harawa NT, Bingham TA, Cochran SD, Greenland S, Cunningham WE. “HIV Prevalence among Foreign- and US-Born Public STD Clinic Clients” American Journal of Public Health December 2002;92(12);1958-63.

• Cunningham WE, Crystal S, Bozzette S, Hays RD. “The Association of Health-related Quality of Life with Survival among Persons with HIV Infection in the US” In press Journal of General Internal Medicine 2004.

• Cunningham WE, Hays RD, Duan N, Andersen RM, Nakazono TT, Bozzette SA, Shapiro MF.  “The Effect of Socioeconomic status on the Survival of Persons Receiving Care for HIV Infection in the United States.”  Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved November 2005: 16(4); 655-676.

• Newman PA, Duan N, Lee SJ, Rudy ET, Seiden DS, Kakinami L, Cunningham WE.  “HIV Vaccine Acceptability Among Communities at Risk: The Impact of Vaccine Characteristics.”  Vaccine March 2006;24(12); 2094-101.

• Cunningham WE, Sohler NL, Tobias C, Drainoni M, Bradford J, Davis C, Cabral HJ, Cunningham CO, Eldred L, Wong MD. “Health Services Utilization for People with HIV Infection: Comparison of a Population Targeted for Outreach with U.S. Population in Care.”  Medical Care November 2006; 44(11):1038-1047.

• Zingmond D, Ettner SL, Cunningham WE. “The Impact of Managed Care on Access to Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Therapy and on Outcomes Among Medicaid Beneficiaries with AIDS.” Medical Care Research and Review  February 2007; 64(1): 66-82.

• Tobias C, Cunningham WE, Howard HJ, Cunningham CO, Naar-King S, Eldred L, Bradford J, Sohler NL, Wong MD, Drainoni ML.   “Living with HIV but without Medical Care: Barriers to Engagement.”  In Press AIDS Patient Care 2006.

• Newman PA, Duan N, Lee S-J, Rudy ET, Seiden DS, Kakinami L, Cunningham WE.  “Willingness to participate in HIV Vaccine Trials: The Impact of Trial Attributes.”  In Press Preventive Medicine 2007.

• Kinsler J, Wong MD, Sayles J, Davis C, Cunningham WE. “The Effect of Perceived Stigma from a Health Care Provider on Access to Care Among a Low Income HIV Positive Population.” In Press AIDS Patient Care and STDs 2007.