URBAN ARCH at Summer 2024 Conferences

International URBAN ARCH Center investigators participated in a number of conferences this summer.

Congratulations, Jeffrey!

The College on Problems of Drug Dependence (CPDD) 86th Annual Scientific Meeting was held from June 15-19 in Montreal, Canada. International URBAN ARCH Center Principal Investigator Dr. Jeffrey Samet received the  inaugural James L. Sorensen Distinguished Treatment & Service Mentor Award at the conference.

Dr. Kaku So-Armah and Dr. Judy Hahn at the RSA Satellite meeting.

The 47th Annual Research Society on Alcoholism (RSA) Scientific Meeting took place from June 22-26 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. On June 22, the Consortia for HIV/AIDS and Alcohol Research Translation hosted the 3rd Annual RSA Satellite Meeting on Alcohol and HIV, organized by Dr. Matthew Freiberg and the Vanderbilt Center for Population Science and Randomized Clinical Trials team. The objective of this satellite meeting was to present updates on alcohol research among people living with HIV from several large NIAAA-funded HIV and alcohol consortia, including the International URBAN ARCH Center. The International URBAN ARCH Center Training & Mentoring Program organized one-on-one mentoring sessions for early stage investigators during the satellite meeting. A total of 20 mentoring sessions took place.

Mentoring session in progress at the RSA Satellite meeting.
Sarah Rossi presenting at the RSA Satellite meeting.

The satellite meeting also featured poster presentations from early stage investigators. Sarah Rossi presented a poster abstract on behalf of the TALC study entitled, “Transition of an observational longitudinal study on alcohol and TB from Russia to Uganda – an implementation analysis for best practices.” Dr. Cristina Espinosa da Silva presented a poster abstract, “Efficacy of alcohol reduction interventions among people with HIV as measured by self-report and the alcohol biomarker phosphatidylethanol: a systematic review and individual participant data meta-analysis,” focusing on work from the BAHR study, which was featured in a previous issue of this newsletter.

Dr. Espinosa da Silva presenting at the RSA Satellite meeting.

Dr. Espinosa da Silva also presented her abstract, “Routinely Collected Lab Tests can be Used to Predict Biomarker-Measured Heavy Alcohol Use Among People with HIV: a Proof-of-Concept Using Machine Learning,” at the RSA conference. This work was also presented by Dr. Espinosa da Silva at the URBAN ARCH Annual Meeting earlier this year, which you can read more about here.

Alyssa Wong presenting at IAS.

AIDS 2024, the 25th International AIDS Conference, took place from July 22-26 in Munich, Germany. Alyssa Wong presented a poster abstract at the conference entitled, “Substance use discrimination in healthcare and HIV status disclosure among people with HIV who inject drugs in St. Petersburg, Russia,” featuring research from the LINC-II study. Alyssa shared her experience at the conference:

“AIDS 2024 was so international, with people coming from all over the world. There was a surprising intersection of many HIV advocacy groups and art, through cultural performances, songs, and visual art – it was very exciting to be there! The conference also largely focused on leaning on communities as experts and drivers of change in HIV prevention and treatment.”

We look forward to highlighting more International URBAN ARCH Center research and activities at future conferences!