Researcher hits the streets in rapid response to spread of disease

It ’s the Tuesday night before Christmas asIan W. Holloway tucks his 2-year-old daughter Sof ía into bed and prepares to leave his home.It ’s time for Holloway, an assistant professor of social welfare in theUCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, to get back to work.Along with three UCLA student researchers, Holloway will spend the next several hours bar-hopping in  West Hollywood for his latest research project. Their task will be to find and interview gay and bisexual men outside popular nightspots and discover how much they know about a current meningitis outbreak and the steps that health officials have taken to battle it.Time is a critical factor. The team needs to complete about 500 interviews by February.  The data they gather will be analyzed by March to inform a research brief that should help California produce better outreach and programs centered on meningitis vaccination for this population.Holloway ’s meningitis study is part of a four-year $4 million grant from the California HIV/AIDS Research Program to produce “what we call rapid-response research,” he explains. The idea is to complete research within months, not years, related to timely policy issues that impact people living with H IV or AIDS in California. The meningitis outbreak has led to two deaths since it was first reported last spring, and the researchers need to go where those most at risk can reliably be found.  Because outbreak of the disease in Southern California is  primarily a...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news