Category Archives: Feature

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War is perhaps one of the most challenging situations that a human being can experience. The physical, emotional, cognitive and psychological demands of a combat environment place enormous stress on even the best-prepared military personnel. Numerous reports indicate that the incidence of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in returning OEF/OIF military personnel is creating a significant healthcare challenge. This situation has served to motivate research on how to better develop and disseminate evidence-based treatments for PTSD and other psycho social conditions. In this regard, Virtual Reality delivered exposure therapy for PTSD is currently being used with initial reports of positive outcomes. This presentation will detail how virtual reality applications are being designed and implemented across various points in the military deployment cycle to prevent, identify and treat combat-related PTSD in OIF/OEF Service Members and Veterans. We will also present recent work being done with artificially intelligent virtual humans that serve in the role as “Virtual Patients” for clinical training of healthcare providers in both military and civilian settings and as online healthcare guides for breaking down barriers to care. The projects in these areas that will presented have been developed at the University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies, a U.S. Army University Affiliated Research Center, and will provide a diverse overview of how virtual reality is being used to deliver exposure therapy, assess PTSD and cognitive function, provide stress resilience training prior to deployment and its use in breaking down barriers to care. The talk will conclude with a discussion of how the urgency of war has provided the context and funding for the advancement of these technologies that will soon translate to civilian needs.

Speaker Bio: Albert “Skip” Rizzo is a Clinical and Neuro- Psychologist, and Associate Director of the University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies. Skip conducts research on the design, development and evaluation of VR systems targeting the areas of clinical assessment, treatment and rehabilitation. In the psychological domain, he has directed the development/implementation of the Virtual Iraq/Afghanistan VR exposure therapy system for combat-related PTSD and is involved in translating these simulation assets for PTSD assessment and prevention (stress resilience). His cognitive work has addressed the use of VR applications to test and train cognitive functioning. In the motor domain, he develops VR game-based applications to promote rehabilitation in persons with CNS dysfunction (e.g., stroke and TBI). He is also involved in the creation of artificially intelligent virtual human patients for clinical training and for creating online virtual human healthcare guides for breaking down barriers to care in psychological health and TBI.

CHIPTS was honored to host a Grand Rounds lecture by David Bangsberg, MD, MPH, entitled “International Perspectives on Adherence to HIV Treatment & Prevention”.

Dr. Bangsberg is the Director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Global Health and a Professor at the Harvard School of Medicine, Harvard School of Public Health, and Mbarara University of Science and Technology. He completed medical school at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Balti-more, his internal medicine and chief residency at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York, and Fellowships in Infectious Disease and AIDS Prevention at the University of California, San Francisco. He also holds Master’s Degrees in Public Health from the University of California, Berkeley and the History and Philosophy of Science from Kings College, London. Dr. Bangsberg’s research focuses on social behavioral factors related to HIV treatment access, treatment adherence and treatment outcomes in impoverished populations. Dr. Bangsberg has published over 250 manuscripts and raised over 50 million dollars in funding related to the study of social, behavioral, and structural determinants of HIV treatment in vulnerable populations.

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On Tuesday, October 21, 2014, the UCLA Center for HIV Identification, Prevention, and Treatment Services (CHIPTS) and the National AIDS Housing Coalition co-hosted a one-day conference on “The Housing Determinant: Integrating Housing into the Continuum of HIV Services” at UCLA Covel Commons in Los Angeles. The event was sponsored and supported by the Center for Behavioral and Addiction Medicine (CBAM) in the Department of Family Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles City AIDS Coordinator’s Office, Los Angeles County Commission on HIV, Friends Research Institute, CHIPTS’ Policy Core, UCLA Pacific AIDS Education and Training Center (PAETC), UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, UCLA AIDS Institute, and UCLA Center for AIDS Research (CFAR).

The purpose of this one-day conference was to share the latest research on the impact of housing status on HIV outcomes, to discuss real-world models for integrating housing into HIV prevention and care, to foster collaborations among various stakeholders, and to develop action strategies to inform local policy, community planning, and research directions. The event included speakers such as Mayor John D’Amico of West Hollywood, City of Los Angeles Councilmember Paul Koretz, Mr. Douglas Brooks (Director of the Office of National AIDS Policy), Mr. Greg Millett (Vice President and Director of Public Policy at AmFAR), Ms. Jennifer Ho (Senior Advisor of Housing and Health to HUD Secretary), Dr. Raphael Bostic (Professor and Judith and John Bedrosian Chair in Governance and the Public Enterprise at USC Sol Price School of Public Policy), Dr. Elise Riley (Associate Professor at UCSF), Dr. Joshua Bamberger (Medical Consultant with SF Department of Public Health), Dr. Christopher Gordon of NIMH, and many others. For a complete copy of the event program, please [Download not found]

Below are videos and slides from the event.

Welcome and Opening Remarks

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Jennifer Ho

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Raphael Bostic

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Award

The case shocked experts and raised hopes — at least temporarily — that HIV was functionally curable in its tiniest victims.

A Mississippi baby who was infected at birth appeared to remain clear of the virus for nearly two years, even though she was not taking prescribed antiretroviral drugs.

Although medical staff called it a “punch to the gut” when they learned earlier this year that the virus had returned to detectable levels, the young patient’s experience seemed to suggest a possible weakness in the virus.

Specifically, the use of a powerful three-drug cocktail very soon after birth appeared to substantially reduce HIV’s infamous hidden reservoir, and slowed its ability to gain a foothold.

On Monday, the National Institutes of Health announced the start of a global clinical trial in which newborns infected with the virus that causes AIDS will be given medication within two days of birth. (The Mississippi baby received anti-HIV therapy 30 hours after birth. The child’s mother stopped treatment after 18 months.)

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Implementation Science: Framework, Challenges, and Multidisciplinary Approaches

Chunqing Lin, Ph.D.
Assistant Research Epidemiologist
UCLA-Semel Institute
Center for Community Health

The incidence of HIV infection in South Africa tops that of any nation in the world, with some 6 million of the country’s nearly 50 million residents infected. Sadly, young women — and particularly young pregnant women — suffer some of the highest rates of HIV infection. More than one-fourth of pregnant South African women are infected with the virus; in some communities, the infection rates are even higher.

But a new study conducted by UCLA’s Mary Jane Rotheram-Borus, the director of the UCLA Global Center for Children and Families at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, and her colleagues from Stellenbosch University in South Africa found that community-based interventions could improve the health of children in those contexts. A paper about the randomized controlled trial appears in the current edition of the journal PLoS One.

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CHIPTS Methods Seminar – UCLA-Semel Institute Center for Community Health

Analyzing Sexual Behavior from the Healthy Living Project

Robert Weiss, Ph.D.

Professor

Department of Biostatistics

UCLA Fielding School of Public Health

 

Abstract:

Longitudinal behavioral intervention trials to reduce HIV transmission risk collect complex multilevel and multivariate data longitudinally for each subject with important correlation structures across time, level, and variables. Accurately assessing the effects of these trials are critical for determining which interventions are effective. Both numbers of partners and numbers of sex acts with each partner are reported at each time point. Sex acts with each partner are further differentiated into protected and unprotected acts with correspondingly differing risks of HIV/STD transmission. These trials generally also have eligibility criteria limiting enrollment to participants with some minimal level of risky sexual behavior tied directly to the outcome of interest. The combination of these factors makes it difficult to quantify sexual behaviors and the effects of intervention. We propose a multivariate multilevel count model that simultaneously models the number of partners, acts within partners, and accounts for recruitment eligibility. Our methods are useful in the evaluation of intervention trials and provide a more accurate and complete model for sexual behavior. This is joint work with Yuda Zhu.

Robert Weiss is professor in the department of Biostatistics in the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and a member of the CHIPTS methods core. He is expert in analysis of longitudinal data. He develops statistical methodology for longitudinally collected univariate and multivariate psychometric data, and human behavior generally such as retention in care, self-reported substance use and sexual behaviors. He is author of the advanced introductory textbook Modeling Longitudinal Data (Springer, 2005).

 

https://chipts.ucla.edu/2014/10/03/two-calls-applications/

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