Ronnie Gravett
University of Alabama at Birmingham, AL·Public Health & Epidemiology·Early-career
HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), medication that prevents HIV infection, works well. Yet the Deep South of the United States has the nation's highest burden of new HIV diagnoses and lags other regions in how many people start PrEP and keep taking it.
- Fields
Public Health & Epidemiology
Medicine & Clinical Research
Social Science
- Topics
HIV prevention
pre-exposure prophylaxis
PrEP
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Feb 2027
What they work on
- Explore preferences for PrEP messaging content among men who have sex with men in the Deep South through qualitative interviews informed by Andersen's Behavioral Model of healthcare utilization.
- Use a discrete choice experiment, a survey in which people choose between options with different features, to define the preferred attributes of PrEP messages and shape a crowdsourcing open call.
- Compare preferences for crowdsourced, community-made PrEP content with standard health authority content to inform a digital intervention designed to increase PrEP uptake.
More about the research
Promotional messages could help close that gap. However, little is known about what kind of PrEP messaging fits the barriers people face in this region. This project focuses on men who have sex with men in the Deep South and invites community members to help create PrEP messages themselves.
Why it matters
New HIV diagnoses remain very high in the Deep South despite an effective prevention medication. PrEP messages created by community members and grounded in local barriers could inform a digital intervention to raise PrEP uptake among men who have sex with men in the region. This could help lower new HIV infections where the need is greatest.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Edward Alessi
Rutgers University-New Brunswick, NJ·Public Health & Epidemiology
Identify structural, community, interpersonal, and individual factors linked to sexual risk, HIV testing, and PrEP (HIV-preventing medication) use among 300 Latino/x sexual minority migrant men, using an online survey recruited through dating apps.
Lisa Eaton
University of Connecticut, CT·Public Health & Epidemiology
Enroll 500 HIV-negative Black men who have sex with men (BMSM) who test positive for substance use, and give evidence-based counseling to help them access PrEP, a daily HIV-prevention medicine.
Kiyomi Tsuyuki
University of California-San Diego, CA·Public Health & Epidemiology
Evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of CHAMPION, which combines the PrEPAPP app with CBT4CBT computer-based cognitive behavioral therapy, among 100 HIV-negative meth-using MSM, measured by retention and engagement against a waitlist control.
The school
University of Alabama at Birmingham: 45 labs on PI Pages, $866M a year on research, 166 research doctorates a year.
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