HBS Awards and Accomplishments: March 2021

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HBS Awards and Accomplishments

A monthly series featuring ten awards and accomplishments across the Department of Health, Behavior & Society.

  1. HBS faculty member, S Wilson Beckham, PhD, and HBS doctoral alums, Tahilin Karver, PhD, and Andrea Mantsios, PhD, published a new paper in Global Public Health titled “Acceptability and perceptions of HIV oral self-testing across settings: A comparative qualitative study among Dominican and Tanzanian female sex workers.” HBS affiliate, Deanna Kerrigan, PhD, also contributed to the publication.
  2. HBS doctoral alums, Tahilin Karver, PhD, and Andrea Mantsios, PhD, collaborated with HBS faculty member, S. Wilson Beckham, PhD, and HBS affiliate, Deanna Kerrigan, on a new AIDS and Behavior paper titled “Development of the Experiences of Sex Work Stigma Scale Using Item Response Theory: Implications for Research on the Social Determinants of HIV.” 
  3. HBS faculty member, Cui Yang, PhD, and International Health faculty member, Alain Labrique, PhD, received $300,000 from Bloomberg Philanthropies to work with Cuebiq to evaluate Ad Council's COVID-19 Vaccine Education Initiative’s "It's Up to You" campaign over the next six months. The project will utilize geospatial measurement technology to evaluate the Ad Council campaigns' effectiveness on COVID-19 vaccine uptake, particularly among key communities who have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19. Other HBS investigators on the team include Rajiv Rimal, PhD, and Brian Weir, PhD.
  4. HBS faculty member, S Wilson Beckham, PhD, published a new paper in BMJ Global Health titled “Characterising the impact of COVID-19 environment on mental health, gender affirming services and socioeconomic loss in a global sample of transgender and non-binary people: a structural equation modelling.”
  5. HBS faculty member, S. Wilson Beckham, received a two-year grant with partners from Emory University School of Public Health, funded by ViiV Healthcare, entitled "Preferences for Long-Acting Injectable Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis among Men who Have Sex with Men." The project will measure preferences in the American Men's Internet Survey, which surveys about 10,000 men across the US annually.
  6. HBS doctoral student, Evan Eschliman, published a new paper in Qualitative Health Research titled “Identifying ‘What Matters Most’ to Men in Botswana to Promote Resistance to HIV-Related Stigma."
  7. A proposal from HBS faculty member, Jennifer Glick, PhD, was chosen to receive funding from the Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions (HCHDS), 2021-2022 Pilot Project Award. The study will leverage quantitative methods to assess the role of neighborhood disadvantage in opioid use disparities among women at different intersections of race and sexual orientation.
  8. HBS faculty member, Vanya Jones, PhD, was named co-chair of the JHU Innovation Fund for Community Safety. The recently established 12-member selection committee will award $6 million in funding towards community-led programs aimed at decreasing violence in Baltimore.
  9. A Center for a Livable Future team was awarded a $525,000 grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to launch an initiative to build the capacity of food policy councils (FPCs) to confront systemic racism in the food system. The initiative is the first national effort geared towards empowering FPCs to advance racial equity and economic justice in their councils and in their policy work. HBS faculty member, Anne Palmer, MAIA, will serve as the project's primary investigator. 
  10. HBS faculty member, Kevin Welding, PhD, has been named associate director of the Institute for Global Tobacco Control. Welding has been with HBS since 2015.