HIV Technical Cooperation Group

Population health research projects in which I am involved follow. All of these are under the auspices of the UW Health Promotion Research Center (http://depts.washington.edu/hprc/), a 30-year, competitively funded member of the CDC Prevention Research Centers Program.

HealthLinks Dissemination in Rural WA, Co-PIs: Peggy Hannon and Jeff Harris

The UW Psychiatry Division of Population Health is dedicated to improving the health of the public by developing, testing, evaluating, and implementing effective behavioral health interventions across the entire spectrum of health care delivery.

We are committed to finding new and innovative approaches to providing effective behavioral health care to defined populations. Our strength lies in knowledge transfer and practice-based learning with implementation work driving new research questions and research results driving new implementation methodology. Our researchers conduct both qualitative and quantitative research and use large data sets to establish benchmarks for treatment outcomes and to study variation across patients, providers, practice and policy.

The Division of Population Health focuses on four primary challenges facing mental health care:

Improving Access
Although there are numerous effective treatments for psychiatric disorders, these treatments often do not reach the patients who need them. We develop and test innovations that increase the healthcare system’s capacity to deliver effective treatments and increase patient’s access to and engagement in effective treatments. Scientific Aims:

• Shift treatment tasks to lower levels of care and encourage patient
  self-management to increase capacity.
• Use technology to substitute virtual care encounters for face-to-face visits to increase access.
• Use virtual care technologies to augment face-to-face visits by facilitating between-visit patient-provider communications and to better determine when face-to-face visits are needed in order to increase both access and capacity.
• “Flip the clinic” and deliver care in non-traditional settings, including the home, to increase access.

Targeting Treatment
For individuals with psychiatric disorders who engage in treatment, it often takes too long to find the right treatment (or combination of treatments) that is most effective. We identify and test methods for predicting which treatment or treatments will be most effective for a particular patient, as well as methods for more quickly detecting when treatment is ineffective. Scientific Aims:

• Develop and test feasible methods for measurement-based care to facilitate identifying treatment non-response.
• Test approaches to promoting shared decision making to encourage the delivery of treatments that address patients’ treatment goals.
• Identify important treatment moderators to help patients and providers choose the right treatment.
• Determine how pharmacogenetics can inform treatment decision making to facilitate precision medicine.

Closing the Mortality Gap
Individuals living with psychiatric disorders endure a greater burden of illness over their lifetimes and experience higher mortality rates. For individuals living with a psychiatric disorder, we develop clinical and public health interventions that promote healthy lifestyles, higher quality of care for physical health disorders and better management of side effects of psychotropic medications. Scientific Aims:

• Develop and test smoking cessation, opioid tapering, and exercise programs for patients with psychiatric disorders.
• Develop and test models of integrating of physical health care into specialty mental health settings.
• Develop and test feasible methods to monitor metabolic side effects of psychotropic medications.
• Develop and test clinical and public health interventions to prevent suicide.

Bridging the Research-Practice Chasm
It takes too long for newly developed evidence-based treatments to be adopted by providers and incorporated into routine care. To bridge the chasm between research and practice, we identify and test implementation strategies that effectively promote the adoption of new evidence-based practices. Scientific Aims:

• Identify variations in the quality of care and deployment of evidence based practices in routine care.
• Identify valid quality metrics and pay-for-performance systems.
• Develop and test clinical decision support systems that encourage evidence based care.
• Test alternative training and facilitation strategies to promote implementation.
• Adapt existing evidence based practices for different populations and clinic settings.

Created in 2013 by the state legislature, the Washington Ocean Acidification Center at UW connects researchers, policymakers, industry, and others across Washington.

Their goals aim to advance the science of ocean acidification and provide a foundation for proactive strategies and policies to protect marine ecosystems and the people connected to them.

The Relational Poverty Network convenes a community of scholars, teachers, policy makers and activists, working within and beyond academia, to develop conceptual frameworks, research methodologies, and pedagogies for the study of relational poverty.

Launched at a historical moment of dramatic income inequality and enforced austerity in the global North, the RPN thinks across geographical boundaries to foster a transnational and comparative approach to poverty research.

The University of Washington Center for Human Rights is committed to interdisciplinary excellence in the education of undergraduate and graduate students in the field of human rights; promoting human rights as a core area of faculty and graduate research; and engaging productively with local, regional, national, and international organizations and policymakers to advance respect for human rights.

The UW Center for One Health Research (COHR) investigates the health linkages between humans, animals, and their shared environments; including zoonoses, comparative clinical medicine, animals as sentinels, animal worker health, food safety, and the human-animal bond.

Through transdisciplinary partnerships, COHR develops innovative strategies for healthy coexistence between humans and animals in sustainable local and global ecosystems.

PORPP’s Vision:
To be a global leader in generating knowledge to improve individual and population health through transformative learning, research, and dissemination about the effectiveness, safety, and value of medical products, services, and policies.

For twenty years PORPP has been a leader in studying, disseminating and informing policy about the impact of pharmaceuticals and other medical care on individual and population health and training the next generation of outcomes researchers. We are primed to morph into an higher organizational unit (a center or institute) in the coming year. We look forward to sustaining the

Judith N. Wasserheit, MD, MPH, has worked extensively at the interface of STI and HIV clinical-epidemiological research, programs and policy in the U.S. and globally. She is the Chair of the University of Washington’s Department of Global Health, and Professor of Global Health, Medicine, and Epidemiology. She was the founding chief of the NIH’s STD Research Branch; Director of the CDC’s STD Prevention Program, and Director of the HIV Vaccine Trials Network, the largest global clinical trials platform evaluating preventive HIV vaccines. Her research has included one of the first laparoscopic studies of pelvic inflammatory disease etiology conducted in the US, the first population-based study of the prevalence and etiologic spectrum of STDs among rural women in the Indian Subcontinent, and research on the interrelationships between STDs and contraceptive practices in other parts of the developing world, including Bangladesh, Egypt, and Indonesia. She has also worked in Colombia, Kenya, Thailand and Zambia. Her development of the concept of epidemiological synergy between HIV infection and other STDs has had a major influence on HIV prevention policy and programs around the world.

Dr. Wasserheit has broad experience working successfully with national and international agencies, governments, and colleagues on STD and HIV research, policy and programmatic issues. She has led or served on numerous World Health Organization and UNAIDS committees and advisory groups. Her honors include the U.S. DHHS Presidential Meritorious Rank Award, the Infectious Diseases Society of America’s Edward E. Kass Award, and the American Social Health Association’s Presidential Award. She is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, a Fellow in the American College of Physicians, a Paul Rogers Society Global Health Research Ambassador, a founding member and past chair of the Consortium of Universities for Global Health.

The Rural/Underserved Opportunities Program (RUOP) is a four-week, elective immersion experience in community medicine for students between their first and second years of medical school. During their four-week rotation, students live in rural or urban underserved communities throughout Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho (WWAMI). They work side-by-side with local physicians providing health care to underserved populations.

Administered by the UW Department of Family Medicine, RUOP is a collaborative effort of the UW School of Medicine, WWAMI campuses and the Area Health Education Centers. It is also supported by the Washington and Idaho Academies of Family Physicians. For more information, contact the RUOP Administrative Offices.

A multi-disciplinary center at the University of Washington School of Dentistry that has been built on strong community partnerships. A common goal of the research conducted by Center investigators is to develop and disseminate practical, evidence-based approaches to reduce oral health problems experienced by poor, minority or rural children and adults who suffer a disproportionate share of oral disease.

The Center for Environmental Politics’ mission is to play a leadership role in producing and disseminating empirical social science research on new modes of environmental politics, policy and governance at local, regional, national, and global levels.

Within the UW, the Center facilitates faculty and graduate students to build connections, establish networks, and initiate multi‐disciplinary conversations about the political and institutional dimensions of environmental challenges.

Externally, the Center is at the forefront of creating and nurturing a community of social science scholars committed to theoretically informed and empirically rigorous research on environmental politics and governance.

The IUCI is a design activism, research and education program based in Lomas de Zapallal (LdZ), an informal urban settlement (slum) in northern Lima, Peru.

It focuses on the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of community-driven interventions in the built environment and, in response to priorities articulated by community members, places particular emphasis on the integrated, interdisciplinary design of public green space.

Forefront is a place where expertise and partnership come together with a passion to save lives.

Forefront advances innovative approaches to suicide prevention through policy change, professional training, campus- and school-based interventions, media outreach, and support for persons affected by suicide.

The UW Clean Energy Institute is accelerating the creating of a clean energy economy and will grow the state of Washington’s capacity to sustain our economy and the environment.

It is accomplishing this by recruiting top faculty and students, investing in state-of-the-art research equipment and partnering with other research institutions, educational program and industry partners.

Vegetation is an integral part of climate and so, changes in vegetation distributions around the globe, either through natural or anthropogenic land use and land cover change, have the potential to modify climate.

From the perspective of an Atmospheric Scientist, vegetation interacts with the atmosphere by modifying fluxes of energy, water, and momentum, processes whose importance varies across the globe. Yet from a Biological perspective, ecosystem structure, diversity, and community dynamics determine the response of an ecosystem to changes in climate.

The Ecoclimate Lab is working to understand when, where and how vegetation influences climate across a range of spatial and temporal scales.

The Technology & Social Change Group (TASCHA) at the University of Washington Information School explores the design, use, and effects of information and communication technologies in communities facing social and economic challenges.

With experience in over 50 countries, TASCHA brings together a multidisciplinary network of researchers, practitioners, and policy experts to advance knowledge, create public resources, and improve policy and program design.

Reducing climate risks requires robust and reliable information that people can use when making decisions.

The Climate Impacts Group supports the development of climate resilience by advancing understanding and awareness of climate risks, and working closely with public and private entities to apply this information as they act to shape society’s future.

The Evans School Policy Analysis and Research Group (EPAR) uses an innovative student-faculty team model to provide ongoing rigorous, applied research and analysis to international development stakeholders.

EPAR’s work is founded on a multi-disciplinary framework for student- and faculty-led research contributing to more informed decision-making and better use of critical philanthropic dollars.

Rapid advances in technology are transforming nearly every field from “data-poor” to “data-rich.” The ability to extract knowledge from this abundance of data is the cornerstone of 21st century discovery.

The mission of the University of Washington eScience Institute is to engage researchers across disciplines in developing and applying advanced computational methods and tools to real world problems in data-intensive discovery.

The Center for Child and Family Well-being promotes the positive development and well-being of children, from infancy through adolescence, particularly those experiencing disadvantage and adversity. The center uses a bioecological approach to children’s well-being addressing the inter-dependence of children’s social, emotional, cognitive and physical development, as they are shaped by individual, interpersonal, community and broader socioeconomic, social and cultural forces. The interactions among these factors influence whether children have vulnerable or resilient responses to economic disadvantage and adversity. CCFW supports children’s resilience by infusing mindfulness, compassion, and social-emotional skills into the lives of children, their parents, caregivers, teachers and the professionals serving them.

CCFW accomplishes our goals by engendering, translating, applying and sharing knowledge that stems from our interdisciplinary research conducted by over 20 faculty affiliates from across the University of Washington. Our research serves as the foundation on which we build education, professional training, prevention, intervention, outreach and advocacy activities of the center. We are committed to serving as a resource and partner in promoting the well-being of children and families locally and globally.

Our Center focuses on developing interventions for trauma-related psychopathology such as PTSD and depression. We are working with local and international refugee populations to develop a brief Islam focused interview and are partnering with the Psychiatric Genetics Consortium-PTSD to conduct worldwide genome association studies.

Based at the University of Washington Bothell, the Center for Education Data and Research (CEDR) will focus on studying the complex relationships between K-12 education policies and practices, social services geared toward students, and student outcomes.

While it will not focus exclusively on Washington State, CEDR will concentrate its efforts on helping build the capacity across Washington State to ask the right questions, frame issues and policy options, and engage in research and data analyses that make good use of the state’s expanding databases.

I run the TransYouth Project, the first large-scale, national, longitudinal study of transgender and gender nonconforming children’s development. We recruit transgender and gender nonconforming children when they are 3-12 to participate in this study, along with their families, and will follow their development and mental health for 20 years.

We hope to discover how gender diverse youth differ and are similar to other youth at key points throughout development, the medical, familial, and broader social systems that contribute to resilience as well as disparities in well-being amongst these youth, and to work to educate the broader public about transgender and gender nonconforming people throughout the world.

Bringing faculty, staff, and students together with community to address the most challenging urban issues today and in the future. We work across disciplines, professions, and expertise to catalyze improvements in human and environmental health in cities and urban landscapes around the globe.

The mission of the Women’s Center is to create a more inclusive and compassionate society by promoting gender equity and social justice through educational programs and services that allows all participants to succeed in life.