Gamji Rabiu Abu-Ba'are
University of Rochester, NY·Public Health & Epidemiology
In Ghana, young men aged 18–25 who have sex with men account for more than 60% of HIV cases within a group that has about 18% HIV prevalence, compared with 2% in the general population. Many never test, held back by stigma, worries about confidentiality, bad experiences with health care, limited knowledge and peer pressure.
- Fields
Public Health & Epidemiology
Social Science
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
HIV prevention
HIV testing
HIV self-testing
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Mar 2027
What they work on
- Identify what drives or blocks HIV testing and HIV self-testing among young men who have sex with men living in Ghanaian urban slums, such as stigma, confidentiality concerns and peer norms.
- Adapt the U.S. peer-based Many Men, Many Voices (3MV) program into LAFIYA for informal urban settlements in Ghana, using the ADAPT-ITT framework for adapting proven interventions.
- Run a pilot pre-post study of LAFIYA with 60 young men to assess acceptability, feasibility and appropriateness, and early effects on HIV self-test uptake and its behavioral drivers.
More about the research
These barriers are even stronger in crowded urban slums. HIV self-testing, where a person tests privately at home, could help, but awareness, availability and confidence in using the tests remain low.
Why it matters
Stigma, privacy concerns and poor access to testing limit HIV testing among young men in Ghanaian slums and in underserved U.S. urban communities alike. Showing how peer-delivered, community-based self-testing works under these conditions could inform scalable testing strategies, such as pharmacy-based and community-distributed self-test models, to bring more people into HIV prevention and care.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
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.
Jhumka Gupta
George Mason University, VA·Public Health & Epidemiology
Develop and user-test EA$E-US, a U.S. version of the Economic And Social Empowerment couples program, for forcibly displaced Congolese couples using the ADAPT-ITT adaptation framework.
Ronnie Gravett
University of Alabama at Birmingham, AL·Public Health & Epidemiology·Early-career
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.
The school
University of Rochester: 38 labs on PI Pages, $492M a year on research, 308 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.