Category Archives: Feature

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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The latest TODAY Book Club pick is “Positive,” a memoir by Paige Rawl, who was diagnosed as HIV-positive when she was in middle school.

At 15, while battling depression in the wake of the bullying she faced, Rawl attempted suicide by taking one pill for each year of her life.

Fortunately she survived, and at 19 she is now an advocate and mentor helping to educate kids about the dangers of bullying and spreading awareness of HIV and AIDS.

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On August 14th, 2014, the Los Angeles Women’s HIV/AIDS Task Force held their 8th Annual HIV Treatment Summit and Health Resource Fair at the California Endowment, in downtown Los Angeles. The summit began with opening remarks from Mario Perez, MPH, Director of the Los Angeles County Division of HIV and STD Programs, and keynote presentation from Gail E. Wyatt, PhD, Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. The event was attend by over 220 HIV positive women, advocates, service providers, and other community members.

Other highlights of the event featured Jordan Lake, MD and Danielle Campbell, MPH, who presented on the importance of participation in clinical trials and why research is important. Also, Nina Harawa, PhD, a core investigator on the CHIPTS Policy Core, led an interactive session exploring the relationship between women and their men who have sex with men and women (MSMW) partners. Kara Chew, MD, a physician at the UCLA CARE Center, also presented on the newest treatments for Hepatitis C and on the transmission and effects of the virus itself.

The event was sponsored by the Magic Johnson Foundation. Among the community partners and supporters of the event included Venice Family Clinic/Common Ground, East LA Women’s Center, UCLA Center for Behavioral and Addiction Medicine (CBAM), UCLA Center for HIV Identification, Prevention and Treatment Services (CHIPTS), UCLA CARE Center, Charles Drew University, JWCH Institute, Special Services for Groups/APAIT, and many others.

Mark A. Wainberg, Ph.D.
Professor of Microbiology and Immunology, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
Director, McGill AIDS Centre, Lady Davis Institute
Jewish General Hospital
“What if HIV could not develop resistance to a new integrase inhibitor when that compound is used in first-line therapy?”
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UCLA CFAR/AIDS Institute Grand Rounds
This monthly lecture series, which is offered by the UCLA CFAR / AIDS Institute, consists of hour-long lunchtime lectures, delivered by invited guests or distinguished members of the Institute faculty, on a broad range of subjects. The aims of the program are to highlight important developments in AIDS-related research, encourage collaborations between UCLA investigators and invited speakers, interest young investigators in AIDS research, and provide information about new findings and new funding opportunities.

On August 29^th, 2014, the Los Angeles County PrEP Workgroup, in collaboration with UCLA CHIPTS, Center for Behavioral and Addiction Medicine, AltaMed, Bienestar Health Services, The Wall Las Memorias, and the UCLA Pacific AIDS Education and Training Center (PAETC), hosted “PrEPárate: A PrEP and PEP Summit for Latino Providers” at the California Endowment in Downtown Los Angeles.   The event included an opening presentation from Dr. Sonali Kulkarni, Medical Director of the Los Angeles County Division of HIV and STD Programs, who spoke about the evolving role of HIV biomedical prevention in Los Angeles County.  Her presentation was followed by two panel discussions, one on pre-exposure prophylaxis and the other on post-exposure prophylaxis.  Each panel session included a medical provider, a community planning member, and a client who was using PrEP or PEP.  Each panelist shared their unique perspectives and opinions on how to best inform and support the Latino community in understanding PrEP and PEP as a HIV prevention strategy.   They addressed key issues related to culture, stigma, and access to these biomedical interventions.  This event was attended by about 120 providers who provide direct services to the Latino community (e.g. clinicians, case managers, medical care coordinators, HIV testing staff, health educators, etc.).

The event was sponsored by UCLA Center for HIV Identification, Prevention and Treatment Services (NIMH grant #MH058107) and the Center for Behavioral and Addiction Medicine.

For a copy of the opening presentation, [Download not found]

http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/html/living/prep-pep.shtml

If you are HIV-negative and exposed to HIV, PrEP and PEP can stop HIV from infecting your body.

PrEP & PEP Posters
PrEP & PEP Posters
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What are PrEP and PEP?
PrEP (Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis) is a daily pill that can prevent HIV infection. If you take PrEP every day, it greatly reduces your risk of HIV.

PrEP can protect you if you’re at risk of exposure to HIV through sex or injecting drugs. and are ready to take a daily pill.
If you are HIV-negative and worry about HIV infection, ask your doctor if PrEP may be right for you.
More information about PrEP.

PEP (Post-Exposure Prophylaxis) is an emergency medication that you begin taking right after you are exposed to HIV. You continue taking PEP for 28 days.
PEP can protect you after you have anal or vaginal sex without a condom with someone who has, or might have, HIV, or if you were exposed to HIV while injecting drugs.
If you are HIV-negative and think you were exposed to HIV, go immediately to a clinic or emergency room and ask for PEP.
More information about PEP.

Let’s stop HIV
If you are HIV-negative, PrEP and PEP can help you stay that way.
If you are HIV-positive, PrEP and PEP can help protect your partner
Staying HIV-Negative
Get free condoms
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Get tested

An AIDS fable: Once upon a time, in the years after AIDS went from being a death sentence to a manageable disease, at least for people rich enough to take antiretroviral therapy, many of the people who ran the world believed that these medicines weren’t appropriate for residents of very poor countries. Even leaving aside the cost, they thought that poor people couldn’t take their medicines on time. Andrew Natsios, the head of the United States Agency for International Development in the George W. Bush administration, argued against funding antiretroviral therapy in Africa. “People do not know what watches and clocks are,” he told the Boston Globe in June, 2001.

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After a day of news saturated with images of smoking plane wreckage and reports that perhaps dozens of his fellow HIV researchers heading to the 2014 AIDS conference in Melbourne may have been on board Flight MH17, Richard Elion had to board a long flight from Los Angeles to Australia.

“I am about to leave for Melbourne,” Elion, an HIV specialist and clinical research director at Whitman-Walker Clinic in Washington, wrote from his iPhone Thursday night on his way to the airport in Los Angeles.

“It is hard to get excited about sharing information yet without a time to mourn,” he wrote. “It is very sad and will cast a pallor over the meetings.

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