Dear SIG community,
We are so thankful for your support, and have had such a productive year. This year, we launched USWEEP in Uzbekistan to help expand the field of social work, and continued work with UNI in Kazakhstan to leverage social networks for the health of men who have sex with men through the Global Health Research Center of Central Asia, published several papers including for project E-Worth, which worked with Black justice-involved women to overcome intimate partner violence, and completed Connect and Unite, a study with Black men who had experienced childhood sexual abuse, completed PACT, a couple-based HIV prevention with men and their female sex partners in probation and other alternative incarceration programs, implemented project BRIDGE in three cities in Kazakhstan and WINGS in India, and most recently launched a multi-disciplinary collaboration to tackle the opioid epidemic with leading scientists from Columbia and beyond.
We were also delighted to share our research in an article appearing in The Conversation, and at conferences such as the International AIDS Conference in Amsterdam and the Gender Inequality Conference in South Africa, as well as meet those impacted most directly by our work. We are also excited to have received a grant award to continue our decade-long HISTP training program, now accepting new faculty applications.
We look forward to continuing our work together to address problems facing our community, including those impacted by the opioid epidemic, HIV, stigma, intimate partner and gender-based violence, the criminal justice system, and the refugee crisis through project ASPIRE.
In the spirit of social justice and our continued work together, and on behalf of the SIG team, happiest of holidays.
Dr. Nabila El-Bassel
Director, Social Intervention Group (SIG)
