| 2008 Update Speakers | | | « back to Update hompage | Michael D. Sweat, Ph.D. | Successes and Challenges in HIV Behavioral Risk Reduction Among Women,
Adolescents, and Children in Developing Countries | | | | BIO | Dr. Sweat joined MUSC’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences in November of 2007. He was a research scientist at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 1990-1992; director of the Behavioral Research Unit at Family Health International in Washington from 1992-1994; and a professor at The Johns Hopkins University, School of Public Health from 1995-2007 in the department of International Health. At Johns Hopkins, Dr. Sweat also served as the director of the Social and Behavioral Sciences academic program at the school. Dr. Sweat has conducted extensive research on HIV behavioral prevention on a wide range of topics and population groups. He was a principal investigator on the first randomized controlled trial examining the efficacy of HIV voluntary counseling and testing in reducing risk behavior. The study, funded by USAID, and was conducted in Kenya, Tanzania, and Trinidad. That study found behavioral risk reduction as a result of exposure to HIV counseling and testing, and found the intervention to be highly cost-effective. He is currently the principal investigator for the Tanzania site of a multisite (Tanzania, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Thailand) community randomized controlled study of the efficacy of community-based HIV voluntary counseling and testing. The experimental intervention includes HIV testing and counseling, community mobilization, and post test support services. With support from NIDA Dr. Sweat has a study in New Delhi, India examining the efficacy of a phased multi-component intervention, including health education and buprenorphine substitution, targeting opiate injecting drug users. In the Dominican Republic he conducted a controlled two-city study testing the efficacy of adapted version of the “Thai 100% Condom” intervention in brothels. This structural intervention demonstrated significant reductions in risk taking, and was found to be cost-effective. Dr. Sweat is also the principal investigator of a NIMH funded systematic review and meta-analysis study examining the strength of evidence for HIV behavioral interventions in developing countries. The project has published numerous mathematic modeling analyses and meta-analyses on HIV behavioral interventions.
| | | | | OBJECTIVES | | At the completion of this session, the participant should be able to: | | | 1. Describe the prevalence and major risk factors for infection with HIV among women, adolescents,
and children, and how these vary by region globally.
2. List the major strategies that have been successful in developing countries in reducing behaviors
associated with HIV infection among women, adolescents, and children.
3. Describe the most common barriers to behavioral risk reduction for HIV infection among women,
adolescents, and children in developing country settings. | |
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