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Each year CHQ invites applicants to participant in its Junior Scholar Program, which is designed to promote early exposure of graduate students across various colleges and schools at the University of South Carolina. The purpose of the program is to advance research training and cultivate research interests for full-time doctoral students. Accepted students develop a one-on-one mentoring relationship with a CHQ faculty member and receive a supplementary stipend to participate in a scientific conference or to publish research findings. Two Junior Scholars from the 2016-2017 cohort, Keith Brazendale (pictured left) and Queenie Li (pictured right), were recently recognized for their research. Keith presented his project titled, “Physical Activity Counseling in Pediatric Primary Care: A Narrative Review” during the 2017 Childhood Obesity Conference in San Diego, CA. Queenie’s project titled, “Changing minds through communications: Utilization of theory to enhance village doctors’ willingness to treat people living with HIV/AIDS in rural China” was recently accepted for presentation at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the American Public Health Association (APHA) held in November.

Dr. Sayward Harrison will be presenting two posters at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the American Public Health Association (APHA), which will be held in Atlanta, Georgia in November. The first poster, “Improving Resilience for Children affected by HIV in China: School-based outcomes of the ChildCARE Intervention at 24-, 30-, and 36-months“, will provide results from an NIH-funded study of a resilience-based intervention for children affected by parental HIV. The second poster, “Implementing Diet and Nutrition Recommendations in Pediatric Primary Care: Challenges and Opportunities” is from a project funded by an ASPIRE grant from the University of South Carolina and seeks to understand how primary care providers are integrating obesity prevention into their practices.

Dr. LaDrea Ingram is a social behavioral scientist and community health educator. She earned her doctoral degree in Health Education & Behavioral Studies from Columbia University, Teachers College. She received a Master of Arts in Government with a concentration in social policy from Johns Hopkins University and a Master of Science in Health and Medical Policy from George Mason University. Her primary research interests include psychosocial determinates of health and health disparities. While at CHQ, LaDrea will focus her research on the cultural and social manifestations of HIV stigma in the Deep South.

Based on a disclosure dataset collected in Guangxi, China, Dr. Guangyu Zhou, in collaboration with Dr. Xiaoming Li and Dr. Shan Qiao, has developed three HIV research manuscripts which were recently accepted by peer-reviewed journals. Two of the studies explored psychosocial mechanisms of antiretroviral therapy (ART) adherence and implied potential approaches to improve medication adherence. These studies were published online in AIDS and Behavior and AIDS Care respectively. In another study, the authors confirmed that HIV symptom management self-efficacy buffered the negative effects of internalized stigma on quality of life among people living with HIV. This study was accepted by the Journal of Health Psychology and will be published online soon.

Continue reading “Dr. Guangyu Zhou Publishes Three HIV Research Manuscripts” →

Members from the SC Center for Healthcare Quality, including core faculty Dr. Xiaoming Li, Dr. Shan Qiao, and Dr. Sayward Harrison and PhD students Yanping Jiang and Wendi Da, visited Henan University in China to participate in the Third International Symposium on Health and Development of Vulnerable Children from May 19-21, 2017. Dr. Harrision, as the keynote speaker, gave a presentation titled, “Evaluation of long-term effects of ChildCARE intervention in Henan, China.” Ms. Jiang also presented her research on how psychological resources buffer the impact of emotional distress on health among children affected by parental HIV.