Category Archives: News

This Special Issue of The American Journal on Drug and Alcohol Abuse (Impact Factor = 2.9) will include a mix of of original research reports, brief reports, systematic reviews , narrative reviews or qualitative research from drug and alcohol abuse projects focused on racial/ethnic minorities and other underserved populations. It will include etiologic, epidemiologic, and intervention studies designed to inform and advance primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention of substance use disorders. The Special Issue is intended to focus on explaining and addressing health disparities rather than merely describing them. An overarching theme of the Special Issue will be resilience, thriving and other culturally-relevant or population-specific protective factors. We are also open to a limited number of high-impact conceptual or policy-oriented articles. The Special Issue Editors will also strive to obtain a balance of different minority and special populations, including an array of substance use disorders, and international as well as national (United States) research projects.  We encourage submission

The special issue article type will be open to submissions on September 1^st 2020. The deadline for submissions is November 30^th 2020.  To be considered for this special issue, the authors must select “SI: Risk, Resilience and Thriving” as the article type from the drop-down menu. All submissions must adhere to journal guidelines and will undergo peer review. Accepted papers will be published online individually prior to print publication.

Prior to submitting a manuscript, the authors are encouraged to submit a brief letter of intent including an abstract of the planned manuscript no later than August 15^th  to riskandresilience@the ajdaa.com to ensure that the topic fits within the scope of this special issue.  You will receive a decision no later than August 30^th based on review the planned abstract by the Guest Editors of the Special Issue and Senior Editor at the American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse.

In collaboration with the Senior Editor, Dr Jennifer Gonzalez, Drs. Craig Field and Christopher Salas-Wright will serve as Co-Editors of the Special Issue and review submission for appropriateness for the Special Issue with emphasis on high impact contributions.

Questions or inquiries about the special issue can be directed to riskandresilience@the ajdaa.com.

More details are available in the flyer below.

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The following Op-Ed was written by Dr. Nina Harawa, CHIPTS Policy Impact Core Director.  The full article published on indystar.com is available here. 

Nina T. Harawa
July 8, 2020 6:00 AM

As America labors under the effects of a global pandemic and struggles with decisions about when and how to resume various activities, the Trump administration announced June 15 that the federal government plans to carry out four executions in the coming weeks.

Many Americans may see little connection between the coronavirus pandemic and the government’s decision to resume executions after a 17-year hiatus. In my role as an epidemiologist who is currently part of efforts to address disparities in COVID-19 infections and deaths and who once led infection control efforts for the Los Angeles County jail, I know there is serious cause for concern.

Whether or not you support the death penalty in normal times, the potential for collateral damage from carrying out these executions as coronavirus cases surge should give you pause.

Carrying out an execution is not as simple as putting a person on a gurney and injecting lethal drugs into his system. It requires a highly trained execution team.

It requires the presence of lawyers, both those for the government and those for the defense, to ensure the process is carried out properly. The victim’s family is entitled to be present. The condemned man has the right to have his family and his spiritual adviser at hand. The press is in attendance, documenting and providing a public eye into the otherwise closed proceedings. Workers are responsible for removing the man’s body after he is pronounced dead.

In mid-March, in a necessary bid to reduce the risk of viral spread inside its facilities, the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) cancelled all family and legal visits – visits that have still not resumed for most prisoners.

Now, however, because the Trump administration has decided it cannot wait to execute these men, the BOP is willing to risk the health and safety of numerous people both in and outside the prison.

Read more of this op-ed.  

This article originally appeared on niaid.nih.org. To see the full article, click here.

July 7th, 2020- A pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) regimen containing an investigational long-acting form of the HIV drug cabotegravir injected once every 8 weeks was more effective than daily oral Truvada at preventing HIV acquisition among cisgender men who have sex with men and transgender women who have sex with men in a clinical trial sponsored by the National Institutes of Health. While both methods were highly effective for HIV prevention in the study population, the final data analysis indicated that cabotegravir had a superior protective effect. Findings from the Phase 2b/3 study, called HPTN 083, will be discussed in an online press conference and oral presentations during the 23rd International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2020: Virtual).

The only currently licensed PrEP medications—daily oral pills containing the HIV drugs tenofovir and emtricitabine—are highly effective at preventing HIV when taken as prescribed. However, taking a pill daily can be challenging. A long-acting form of PrEP could offer a less frequent, more discreet option that may be more desirable for some people. HPTN 083 and an ongoing companion study called HPTN 084, which is evaluating long-acting injectable cabotegravir for HIV prevention in cisgender women in sub-Saharan Africa, are sponsored by NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

Read more here.

This article originally appeared on hptn.org. To see the full article, click here.

DURHAM, N.C. – Researchers from the HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN) announced today that the HPTN 083 clinical trial showed that a pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) regimen containing long-acting cabotegravir (CAB LA) injected once every 8 weeks was superior to daily oral tenofovir/emtricitabine (TDF/FTC) for HIV prevention among cisgender men and transgender women who have sex with men. The results were reported at the 23rd International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2020: Virtual). HPTN 083 is a randomized, controlled, double-blind study comparing the safety and efficacy of a regimen including CAB LA to daily TDF/FTC at 43 sites around the world.

An independent Data and Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) that reviewed interim study data in May 2020 found that the PrEP regimen including CAB LA injected once every 8 weeks safely and effectively prevented HIV acquisition in the study population. Consequently, the DSMB recommended stopping the blinded comparison, offering CAB to all study participants, and disseminating the results. The final analysis of these data demonstrates the superiority of CAB compared to TDF/FTC for PrEP in the HPTN 083 study population.

“The HPTN 083 results demonstrating the superiority of CAB to TDF/FTC have the potential to transform the landscape of HIV prevention for cisgender MSM and transgender women,” said HPTN 083 protocol chair Dr. Raphael J. Landovitz. “We know that some people have difficulty with or prefer not to take pills, and an injectable product such as long-acting CAB could be a very important option for them. We want to thank the study participants and research staff, as this study would not have been possible without their dedication and commitment.” Dr. Landovitz is a professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and co-director of the UCLA Center for Clinical AIDS Research & Education (CARE).

Overall, HPTN 083 enrolled 4,570 cisgender men and transgender women who have sex with men at research sites in Argentina, Brazil, Peru, South Africa, Thailand, the U.S., and Vietnam. Two-thirds of study participants were under 30 years of age, and 12% were transgender women. Half of the participants in the United States identified as Black or African American.

Read more about the HPTN 083 Study findings.

For general information about the HPTN 083 Study, visit the HPTN 083 website.

Dr. Raphael Landovitz, Co-Director of CHIPTS and the CHIPTS Combination Prevention Core, presented study findings on behalf  of the HPTN 083 Team at this year’s AIDS 2020 conference.  A copy of this slide presentation is also available on the HPTN 083 website here.

 

Application Deadline: Tuesday, June 30, 2020

The Center for HIV Identification, Prevention and Treatment Services is pleased to announce scholarships for individuals who would like to attend the 23^rd International AIDS virtual conference from July 6-10, 2020.

The scholarship aims to provide opportunities and support for community members including youth (ages 18-25 years), community advocates/researchers, students (undergraduate, graduate-level, pre-and post-doctoral students) and early-stage investigators in Southern California counties to attend the conference in an effort to promote science, foster networking, and increase capacity building. Individuals from underrepresented populations are encouraged to apply. There are a limited number of scholarships available based on availability of funding with certain restrictions applied.

Priority will be given to those who have not received scholarship funds from CHIPTS within the last 12 months and who have an HIV-related oral/poster presentation or workshop accepted at the conference.  The scholarship covers only the cost of the conference registration fee and will be provided as a reimbursement which will be processed at the end of the conference.

Please fill out the application form here.

For more questions about the scholarship, contact Damilola Jolayemi at ojolayemi@mednet.ucla.edu.

This scholarship is supported by the Center for HIV Identification, Prevention, and Treatment Services (CHIPTS) NIMH grant P30MH058107.

April 18th, 2020- The CDC made the official decision this year to transition the historically observed STD Awareness Month of April to a STD Awareness Week. This week of April 12th-18th marked its beginning.

Sexual health is a vital part of individual health. Understanding the importance of testing and treatment goes beyond simply having the knowledge about the many Sexually Transmitted Infections/Diseases. It extends profoundly towards prevention and decreasing spread. Below are important suggestions created by the CDC for both healthcare providers and community members to increase the conversation, testing, and treatment around STDs/STIs, and ultimately aim to reduce the stigmas surrounding them.

This article originally appeared on aidsvu.gov. To see the full article, click here.

ATLANTA – April 15, 2020 – AIDSVu today announced the release of new interactive county-level data and maps visualizing PrEP use from 2012 to 2018, showing a 39% increase in PrEP use across the U.S. from 2017 to 2018, continuing a trend of consistent growth in PrEP use since 2012. AIDSVu is releasing these first-ever county-level data on PrEP to offer a more granular view of trends and disparities in PrEP use across the U.S. and complement the state-level PrEP use data and maps first released on AIDSVu in March 2018.

PrEP, or pre-exposure prophylaxis, is when people at risk for HIV take medicine daily to lower their chances of getting infected with HIV. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has estimated that approximately 1.1 million people are at high-risk for HIV exposure and could benefit from comprehensive HIV prevention strategies, including PrEP.

Read more here.

April 16th, 2020- A critical call to action was voiced in a recent publication co-authored by Drs. Steve Shoptaw, Raphael Landovitz, and David Goodman-Meza, faculty members of UCLA CHIPTS. The article, entitled “Collective Call to Action for HIV/AIDS Community-Based Collaborative Science in the Era of COVID-19”, highlights the significant impacts of the current COVID-19 pandemic on the nation’s “already strained health systems,” adding further complexity to many co-occurring epidemics and subsequently disrupting forward-focused eradication initiatives. This includes those created for the Ending the HIV Epidemic (EtHE).

The publication keenly acknowledges the need to “re-purpose scientific, clinical, and material resources” as an essential pandemic response tactic, prioritize “trickle down caring” alongside trickle-down economics, and collaboratively coordinate COVID-19 shifts within community-based HIV efforts. “We need now to integrate into our objectives shifts that accommodate responses needed for COVID-19 and to maintain commitments to make measurable progress not only to maintain gains in HIV treatment and prevention, but to end the HIV epidemic.”

Major insights were further provided on key HIV treatment measures presently in use and their foregoing relations to the COVID-19 crisis, such as Undetectable is Untransmittable, Pre-exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP), and HIV testing/counseling.

Read more on this call to action here, or download the PDF version available below.

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This article originally appeared on hhs.gov. To see the full article, click here.

Today, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), awarded $90 million for Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program recipients across the country to prevent, prepare for, and respond to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). This funding is provided by the fiscal year 2020 Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, which President Trump signed into law on Friday, March 27, 2020.

“HRSA’s Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program recipients are serving on the frontlines of this pandemic, supporting clients and communities at higher risk from COVID-19,” said HHS Secretary Alex Azar. “This new investment is vital to enabling the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program to continue responding to the increasing needs of their patients and communities during this challenging time. The Trump Administration remains committed to ending the HIV epidemic in America by 2030, and we will continue building on the success of the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program to do it.”

This funding supports 581 Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program recipients across the country, including city/county health departments, health clinics, community-based organizations, state health departments, and AIDS Education and Training Centers, in their efforts to prevent or minimize the impact of this pandemic on people with HIV.

Read more here.