CPHHR 15th Anniversary — Center Highlights
The Center for Public Health and Human Rights recently celebrated our 15th anniversary on October 15th and hosted our annual Fall Symposium “Paradigm Under Threat” with Jonathan Cohen, Dr. Beyrer, and Dr. Page. The recording of the symposium can be seen here.
Further, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Wall of Wonder has recently featured many of our ongoing projects that reflect our mission to promote the health of marginalized and at-risk populations. Namely, our 3 main pillars of research include: Key Populations, Women’s Health Rights, and Conflict and Health — each of these pillars seek to bring the tools of public health research to fulfill the rights of the world’s most disadvantaged people to health and human dignity.
For our Key Populations program, 3 projects were featured.
Siyaphambili
The ongoing Siyaphambili study in Durban, South Africa is an adaptive randomized RO1 trial, implemented in partnership with TB HIV Care, to evaluate the impact and cost-effectiveness of a mobile decentralized antiretroviral therapy intervention and an individualized case management intervention in providing HIV treatment coverage, retention, and viral suppression for female sex workers living with HIV in Durban, South Africa.
COPE4YMSM: Thai YMSM Prevention Effectiveness Evaluation
This Thai-US collaboration seeks to develop and conduct a non-randomized effectiveness and cost-effectiveness study of a multi-level combination HIV preventive intervention with and without daily oral Tenofovir/Emtricitabine (Truvada) pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) with mobile phone-based SMS adherence support among HIV uninfected at risk young (18–26 year old) men who have sex with men (YMSM) in Bangkok, Thailand.
Accelerate!
Accelerate! is supported by ViiV Healthcare, funded by its 4-year $10 million commitment to strengthen the health and well-being of Black gay and bisexual men in Baltimore, MD and Jackson, MS — two cities that are hardest hit by HIV.
For our Women’s Health Rights program, 3 projects were featured.
The LITE Study
The study focuses on sexual health and HIV in order to learn about engagement in HIV prevention and treatment, but will also assess a wide range of health and social topics including access to gender affirming healthcare, violence, social support, and other topics.
Multi-level Determinants of Uptake and Adherence to a Novel Women-Empowered HIV Prevention Strategy
This study focuses on testing adolescent girls and young women (AGYW)-empowered prevention strategies, including secondary distribution of HIV self-test kits to male partners of AGYW, as well as pre-exposure prophylaxis for AGY.
Women and Housing: Trajectories of Housing Stability and Safety for Intimate Partner Violence Survivors in Baltimore
This prospective, mixed-methods study explores leading models of housing support to describe resulting trajectories of safety, housing stability, health and well-being over time, and understand barriers to safety at the structural, community, and partner dyad levels.
For our Conflict and Health program, 2 recent reports were featured.
Our Director of Conflict and Health, Len Rubinstein, published a report titled “Reality Makes Our Decisions: Ethical Challenges in Humanitarian Health in Situations of Extreme Violence.”
In collaboration with the International Rescue Committee and SAMS (Syrian American Medical Society), the report addresses some of the unique and difficult challenges humanitarian health organizations working in settings of extreme violence. The report, based on almost 100 interviews with organizational managers and front-line health workers, identifies these challenges and makes recommendations to humanitarian organizations to develop processes — now rarely in place — to address the questions in a structured and systematic way.
In collaboration with the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition, the report contains recommendations to protect healthcare workers in areas of conflict.
The recommendations are made for parties to conflict, the WHO, UN member states, the UN Secretary General, and the UNSC.
The Center for Public Health and Human Rights is always striving to bring together effective public health research and intervention implementations to alleviate human suffering. Our faculties’ research interests, as you can see, are incredibly diverse, but their interests all commonly rest in alleviating human suffering in the most vulnerable populations today. Currently, we are in the process of adding a Fourth pillar of the Center: Migrant Health and Human Rights.
You can follow our Center’s current activities through our Twitter and website.
