August 2020 Newsletter
It’s hard to believe that we are already heading into the fall semester! However, there was no August recess for our teams, as we all remained hard at work this month. Our field team resumed collecting data for the Kyaterekera, Suubi4Her and SMART Africa studies via telephone. (See description below for first-hand accounts and observations from our interviewers – the first time ICHAD and SMART Africa Center have used phone interviews to collect study data!) The team is also preparing to launch two new NIH-funded studies, Suubi+Adherence-R2 and Suubi4Stigma. Suubi+Adherence-R2 is the competitive renewal of our Suubi+Adherence study that explored the effects of a family economic empowerment intervention on the adherence of adolescents living with HIV to life-saving antiretroviral medications. This extended funding will allow the team to dig deeper into the potential mechanisms of change and longer-term effects on economic stability, sexual risk-taking behavior, adherence self-efficacy, cognitive functioning, mental health, and social support.
In August, we also closed out our busy summer training program schedule which culminated with presentations by all 25 of our fellows. The final week also featured a career panel discussion featuring Dr. James Mugisha, a Senior Lecturer at Kyambogo University in Uganda; ICHAD Co-Directors, Drs. Proscovia Nabunya and Ozge Sensoy Bahar; and Dr. Latoya Small, an Assistant Professor at University of California, Los Angeles (and a Researcher Resilience Fellow). They discussed their career paths and tips for continuing a career in research.
We are pleased to welcome a new staff member to the ICHAD-US team, Bethel Mandefro, who will help coordinate ICHAD’s many activities! Finally, our team had several publications this month, including PhD student William Byansi’s “A Systematic Review of Task Shifting for Mental Health in Sub-Saharan Africa” and members from the ICHAD team’s article titled “Factors Associated With HIV Disclosure and HIV-Related Stigma Among Adolescents Living With HIV in Southwestern Uganda.” Congratulations to all!
You can find our August 2020 newsletter here.