RESEARCH ROUND-UP
COVID from all angles HIV rates among Phoenix Matthews, PhD, professor and associate dean Black women for equity and inclusion, is involved in three critical areas of COVID-19 research: vetting the vaccine’s approval process, helping communities disproportionately affected by the virus, and outlining ways to conduct ethical research.
Vaccine confidence: Matthews was among three UIC faculty involved in the Chicago Scientific COVID-19 Vaccine Working Group. The group, convened by the Chicago Department of Public Health, was tasked with independently evaluating whether the proper scientific and regulatory review has taken place for authorizing emergency use for COVID-19 vaccines. “Providing reassurances to community members about safety is critically important to the success of widespread vaccination programs,” Matthews said. Community outreach: Matthews joined the Chicagoland COVID Collaborative, a multi-center group that is bolstering research and outreach to help communities disproportionately affected by COVID-19. The UIC-led collaborative, supported by a $1.3 million NIH grant, will focus on strengthening COVID-19 vaccine confidence and access in Chicago-area Black and Latino communities, as well as improving access to testing, treatment and opportunities for clinical trial participation. Ethical research: Matthews joined assistant professor Natasha Crooks, PhD, RN, in authoring a paper on how to ethically conduct research with Black populations in the context of COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement. It was published online in the Journal of Medical Ethics. “Our recommendations include understanding the impact of ongoing trauma, acknowledging historical context, ensuring diverse research teams and engaging in open and honest conversations with Black populations to better address their needs,” the authors wrote.
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College of Nursing
Assistant professor Natasha Crooks, PhD, RN, explored sociocultural conditions that are contributing factors in higher rates of HIV and STIs among Black women as lead author in a paper published in the journal Social Science & Medicine. These conditions include: being silenced about their sexuality; protecting Black men who may be transmitting infections; and cultural norms, stereotypes and messaging about sexuality. “Our findings demonstrate the need for STI/HIV prevention programs to address these sociocultural conditions to improve Black female sexual health,” Crooks and her co-authors wrote in the paper.
“You can’t work to reduce STIs and HIV [among Black women] if you don’t understand their experiences.” Despite the fact that Black women have fewer sex partners and are less likely to engage in unprotected sex, their chlamydia rates were five times those of white women, and gonorrhea rates were 8.8 times higher, according to CDC data for 2018. Among women diagnosed with HIV in 2016, 61% were Black, compared with 19% who were white, according to the CDC. “There was no framework or theories specific to Black women,” Crooks said. “That’s huge: You can’t work to reduce STIs and HIV in this population if you don’t understand their experiences.”
