Drs. Nabila El-Bassel and Louisa Gilbert Receive a $3.5M, Five-Year Grant from NIDA for the First Efficacious Testing of a Couple-Based Intervention in Preventing HIV and Other Health Concerns Among Male Offenders and their Female Sexual Partners in Criminal Justice Settings
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 6, 2012
Contact:
Dr. Nabila El-Bassel
[email protected]
New York, NY—Dr. El-Bassel, Professor (Principal Investigator) at the Columbia University School of Social Work (CUSSW), and Dr. Louisa Gilbert (Co-Principal Investigator) have received a five-year, $3.5M grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) to test the efficacy of a couple-based intervention in preventing the transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among male offenders on probation or court supervision and their female partners.
This randomized controlled trial (RCT) will rigorously evaluate the implementation, effectiveness, and cost-effectiveness of a couple-based integrated HIV/STI and drug abuse prevention intervention with 240 drug-involved male offenders charged with misdemeanors and their primary female sexual partners. The study will be implemented by frontline providers in Criminal Court, Community Court, or Probation sites in the Bronx, NY, and compared with standard treatment of care services. The results of this study will yield important data on implementation factors associated with the effectiveness of the proposed intervention in real-world, resource-constrained criminal justice settings.
“We will be recruiting participants from sites located in the South Bronx and Brooklyn,” says Dr. El-Bassel. “The South Bronx is the poorest Congressional District in the U.S. with 96% of residents identifying as Black or Latino, and has an HIV prevalence rate of 2.6%. Research has found that 12% of men on probation in New York City are HIV positive.”
Dr. El-Bassel further adds, “Though the criminal justice system is recognized as the epicenter of the epidemic in the U.S., few, if any, HIV prevention interventions have been developed for the huge number of male offenders under community supervision who now represent 90% of the corrections population. No HIV/STI prevention services are currently provided in probation settings. The study is designed to address this critical gap in services, and if found effective, Connect II may be scaled-up in community criminal justice settings nationwide to curb the spread of HIV/STIs and to reduce HIV disparities in heavily impacted communities like the South Bronx.”
The study will be conducted in collaboration with Michael Rempel from the Center for Court Innovation and the New York City Department of Probation and a number of investigators, including: Drs. Elwin Wu, Susan Witte, and Thomas D’ Aunno, and Tim Hunt, from Columbia University in collaboration with Dr. Ryan Edwards, New York Community College, and Dr. Steve Belenko, Professor at Temple University. Dr. Fredrick Altice, Professor of Medicine at Yale University, and Dr. Jennifer Wisdom, Senior Research Scientist at the Psychiatric Institute, will provide expertise on HIV research in the criminal justice system.
About the Social Intervention Group
SIG is a multidisciplinary research center at the Columbia University School of Social Work that works to develop and test effective prevention and intervention models and disseminate them to local, national, and international communities. SIG’s research addresses the co-occurring problems of HIV, drug abuse, intimate partner violence, and trauma.
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