Framing the HIV Response For Those Most at Risk: The Granularity Challenge

Dr. Sharon Weir (UNC-CH Research Assistant Professor of Epidemiology; CPC Faculty Fellow)

Professor Weir’s research interests relate to methods that identify and characterize local sexual and injecting drug use networks in resource poor settings. This information is key in preventing the spread of HIV. Not only are many people asymptomatic, which contributes to a hidden epidemic, but persons occupying central positions in HIV transmission networks are often members of mobile, stigmatized, and hard-to-reach populations. Because many people do not know their HIV status and because many of those who are infected are hidden, there is a need for methods based on sound epidemiologic science that use technology appropriate to the local setting to uncover local transmission networks in a way that leads to effective, ethical, and evidence-based prevention.