Ayesha Appa
University of California-San Francisco, CA·Medicine & Clinical Research·Early-career
Deaths involving cocaine and methamphetamine have risen steeply in the United States, and most of them also involve fentanyl. Many people who use stimulants are living with HIV or are at risk of it.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Public Health & Epidemiology
Pharmacology
- Topics
opioid overdose
overdose prevention
fentanyl
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jun 2028
What they work on
- Test the feasibility, acceptability and early effectiveness of long-acting injectable naltrexone, an opioid-blocking drug, for preventing opioid overdose in people who use stimulants, through a randomized trial against a standard harm-reduction bundle.
- Capture the experiences of patients who receive long-acting injectable medicines for both HIV and substance use, through participant interviews at San Francisco General Hospital's Ward 86 clinic.
- Describe how often opioid exposure is intentional or unintentional among people living with or at risk of HIV, using short- and long-term drug-use biomarkers combined with interviews.
More about the research
In this group, no one knows how many mixed stimulant-opioid overdose deaths happen because people are unknowingly exposed to fentanyl. Overdoses now threaten recent gains in life expectancy among people with HIV, so new prevention tools are urgently needed.
Why it matters
Accidental fentanyl exposure may be driving overdose deaths among people who use cocaine or methamphetamine, especially those living with or at risk of HIV. If injectable naltrexone proves practical and protective, it could offer a way to prevent opioid overdoses. It could also be combined with injectable HIV care into a single approach, which may be especially useful in places like San Francisco with high overdose death rates.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Hansel Tookes
University of Miami, FL·Public Health & Epidemiology
Determine whether the Comprehensive-TeleHealth-concieRge model increases engagement in HIV prevention compared with offsite referral plus peer navigation, in a randomized trial of 350 people who inject drugs recruited at a low barrier clinic in Miami.
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.
Oluwaseun Falade-Nwulia
Johns Hopkins University, MD·Public Health & Epidemiology·Early-career
Adapt an existing social network intervention to rural settings with community input, so peer educators can distribute HIV self-testing kits and link people who use drugs to telemedicine care at community organizations.
The school
University of California-San Francisco: 89 labs on PI Pages, $2.1B a year on research, 164 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.