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Downs Fellows to Present Research Projects

Leah Hoffman, MPH '10

Ten YSPH students selected as Downs International Health Student Travel Fellows will present their findings from last summer at a symposium and poster session this Friday at 315 Cedar Street.

The students will join their colleagues at Yale’s Schools of Medicine and Nursing in highlighting results from their research projects, pursued in countries as diverse as South Africa, Haiti, Thailand and Poland.

The fellowship honors Wilbur G. Downs (1913 - 1991), a professor of epidemiology and public health at the Yale School of Medicine, by supporting Yale students who undertake biomedical, medical, nursing and public health research in developing countries.
Javier Cepeda ’10, a student in the division of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases, traveled to St. Petersburg, Russia, to assess whether drug users who practice high-risk behavior display more willingness to trust friends and acquaintances on such issues as H.I.V. status and sterile injection practices. He hopes the results will help health officials in Russia tailor effective support programs to these groups.

“It was a great privilege, and my first taste of being a P.I. [principal investigator],” said Cepeda. “Most Russian health officials not involved in HIV prevention had no idea of the magnitude of the epidemic in St. Petersburg, and were shocked that it drew an American there to study it.

“I entered as an epidemiologist,” he added, “and left as an ethnographer,” with a fuller understanding of Russian social and cultural issues.

Molly Rosenberg ’10, also in the division of EMD, worked with a microfinance venture to study whether economic empowerment reduces H.I.V. risk behavior among Haitian women. “Every day I took a motorcycle ride through the countryside to different loan repayment meetings to interview participants,” she said. Her analysis revealed that women with more microfinance experience are nearly four times as likely to use condoms if their partner is unfaithful.

“The Downs fellowship has allowed me to see an epidemiological study through from the design stage to data analysis,” she said.

Leah Hoffman ’10, a student in the division of Social and Behavioral Sciences, framed her research in Vietnam as a “couples” study, inviting sex workers and their partners to answer questions surrounding trust, condom use and the power scale within their relationship. She found that couples with a greater disparity of answers were less likely to use condoms, confirming a hypothesis that condom usage hinges on clear communication. She plans to use the results to advise Vietnam public-health officials on strategies to promote condom use among sex workers, perhaps via role-playing to strengthen their communications skills.

Friday’s Symposium will also feature addresses from Paul Cleary, dean of YSPH, and Richard Belitsky, deputy dean of education at the Yale School of Medicine. The Symposium is organized by The Committee on International Health (CIH), under the direction of Kaveh Khoshnood, assistant professor in the division of EMD.

-- Story by Melissa Pheterson