Vivian Go
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC·Public Health & Epidemiology
Heavy drinking can make it harder for people to take the medicines that prevent or control HIV. Treating unhealthy alcohol use, which ranges from risky drinking to alcohol use disorder, could therefore help stop new infections.
- Fields
Public Health & Epidemiology
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
HIV prevention
pre-exposure prophylaxis
PrEP
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Jul 2027
What they work on
- Test whether the brief alcohol intervention (BAI), counseling based on Motivational Interviewing and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, improves PrEP persistence and adherence in a randomized trial of 564 PrEP users with unhealthy drinking in Hanoi, Vietnam.
- Measure the BAI's effect on heavy drinking days and other alcohol outcomes among PrEP users, using timeline followback interviews and alcohol biomarkers.
- Estimate the cost per quality-adjusted life-year gained, feasibility and acceptability of scaling up the BAI in PrEP clinics throughout Vietnam.
- Compare facilitation alone with an experiential approach, where staff receive the BAI themselves first, for BAI delivery fidelity and patient viral suppression in a cluster-randomized trial of 30 antiretroviral therapy clinics in Vietnam.
- Use mixed methods to identify clinic and staff traits behind successful BAI scale-up and measure how experiencing the BAI changes staff members' own alcohol attitudes and use.
More about the research
Both projects test a short counseling program, the brief alcohol intervention (BAI), in Vietnam. One tests whether it helps people taking HIV-prevention pills; the other tests how best to roll it out in HIV clinics nationwide. The BAI draws on Motivational Interviewing and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and has already been shown to increase viral suppression in people with HIV.
Why it matters
Unhealthy alcohol use is common among people with HIV and people taking PrEP, and it undermines the medicines that suppress or prevent HIV. If the brief alcohol intervention improves PrEP use and viral suppression, these trials could guide rapid scale-up in Vietnamese clinics and inform how U.S. HIV clinics treat unhealthy drinking, including through clinician continuing education.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Omar Martinez
University of Central Florida, FL·Public Health & Epidemiology
Test in a randomized controlled trial whether adult male couples assigned to a three-session couples-based HIV prevention intervention achieve a greater proportion of HIV-protected sexual acts than couples in a time- and attention-matched Wellness Promotion control condition.
Rachel Solnick
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, NY·Medicine & Clinical Research·Early-career
Develop the TIPPED protocol, which uses routine post-discharge callbacks about STI results to offer HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), together with an implementation strategy shaped by stakeholder input.
Karen Johnson
University of Georgia, GA·Public Health & Epidemiology
Test in a randomized controlled trial whether E-WORTH South increases PrEP uptake and reduces condomless vaginal and anal sex acts at 6 months among 230 women aged 18–65 under non-carceral correctional supervision in two Alabama counties.
The school
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: 72 labs on PI Pages, $1.6B a year on research, 523 research doctorates a year.
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