CHIP AFFILIATES IN THE NEWS

UCONN STUDY FEATURED IN U.S. NEWS AND WORLD REPORT
Kerry Marsh, CHIP PI and Associate Professor of Psychology, and Lori Scott-Sheldon, a CHIP affiliate, led the UConn study featured here.

WYNNE NORTON FEATURED IN ARTICLE ON NRSAs ("F31s")
CHIP graduate student Wynne Norton was recently featured in a gradPSYCH article about National Research Service Awards for Individual Predoctoral Fellows ("F31s"). View the article here.


BLAIR JOHNSON INTERVIEWED ABOUT ANTIDEPRESSANT STUDY
In the following interviews, CHIP Principal Investigator and Professor of Social Psychology Blair T. Johnson, Ph.D., speaks about a study he co-authored that showed some commonly prescribed antidepressants provide little benefit for most people.

February 27, 2008
Good Morning America

February 27, 2008
Campbell Live, a New Zealand television news show

February 28, 2008
NPR's The Diane Rehm Show

RESEARCHER'S NEW BOOK EXAMINES DRUGS AND SOCIAL INEQUALITY
October 15, 2007

CHIP NAMED FIRST UNIVERSITY RESEARCH CENTER
October 1, 2007

CENTER FOR HEALTH, INTERVENTION, AND PREVENTION A MAGNET FOR GRANTS
March 2007

NEW HIV/AIDS – SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY NIH TRAINING GRANT
June 2006

CHIP INVESTIGATOR BLAIR JOHNSON ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTED BY REUTERS HEALTH
June 2006

OPTIONS HIV PREVENTION TRAINING FOR PROVIDERS NOW ONLINE
May 2006

NEW HIV/AIDS – SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY NIH TRAINING GRANT
June 2006

Psychology department high in NSF research rankings
by Cindy Weiss - June 19, 2006

National research rankings recently released by the National Science Foundation (NSF) place psychology at UConn 16th in the country in total research expenditures, a measure of research funding, and 10th nationally in federal research funding.

While the survey ranked only the top 100 institutions in the nation, there are more than 200 graduate programs in psychology in the United States.

UConn’s ranking of 16th for total research dollars places it just behind Carnegie-Mellon University.

The ranking of 10th for federal research grants places UConn close on the heels of the University of Minnesota, which had 55 psychology faculty in 2003 compared with UConn’s 36. The University of Wisconsin at Madison ranked first in both categories.

The grants ranking helps UConn attract the very top graduate students, says Charles Lowe, head of the Department of Psychology.

“We are competitive with the very best psychology departments in the country,” he says.

The grants also help support a national trend to involve undergraduate students in research. For the past two years, more than 400 undergraduate psychology majors have worked with a faculty member and graduate students as part of a research team, says Lowe.

“We constantly make the connection between excellence in research and teaching in the liberal arts and sciences,” says Ross MacKinnon, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

“This recognition of the psychology department’s high research ranking also indicates that students benefit by working closely with faculty who are among the top researchers in their field.”

The NSF survey is based on figures from fiscal years 2000 through 2003, and is the latest ranking the agency has done. It showed nearly $33 million in total research award expenditures by psychology at UConn during those four years, and nearly $22.5 million in federal grant spending for that period.

The research expenditures document how much money was spent in each fiscal year on a research grant.

Large grant awards often span several years, so total grant awards to researchers usually exceed yearly expenditures.

The rankings include all psychology research at UConn, covering grants to the educational psychology department in the Neag School of Education as well as the psychology department in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

The NSF reported nearly $11 million in total research fund expenditures in 2003 for UConn, a 38 percent increase over 2000, and more than $8.5 million in federal research grant spending in 2003, a 103 percent increase over 2000.

The increases are due to more research grant applications in the area of health, says Lowe. Most federal grant funding for research in psychology comes from the NIH.

The Center for Health, Intervention and Prevention (CHIP) in the psychology department, which began as an AIDS risk reduction project and became a multidisciplinary center in 2001, has attracted major national research funding.

Researchers in the department also attract large grants for research into Alzheimer’s disease, autism, and Parkinson’s Disease, among others.

The CHIP program alone received $28 million in external research awards from fiscal years 1999 through 2005, a total that includes $6.7 million in indirect costs contributed to the University, and it recently reported a 38 percent increase in grant awards from fiscal year 2004 to fiscal year 2005.

Of the $8.5 million in federal grant spending attributed to psychology at UConn in 2003, $2.6 million was garnered by the Neag School’s educational psychology department.

CHIP INVESTIGATOR BLAIR JOHNSON ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTED BY REUTERS HEALTH
June 2006

Multi-pronged approach curbs risky sex in the HIV+
By Anne Harding Mon May 29, 3:07 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Programs intended to help individuals infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, to reduce their sexual risk work best if they include training on skills like how to use a condom, as well as motivational training designed to boost social support or otherwise improve overall quality of life, a review of studies suggests.

But Dr. Blair T. Johnson of the Center for Health/HIV Intervention and Prevention at the University of Connecticut in Storrs and colleagues found that interventions including skills and motivational components have actually not been tested in HIV-positive men who have sex with men. "We don't really know how good prevention could be with them," Johnson told Reuters Health.

Motivational components might include information that would help an HIV-positive person feel optimistic about the future, Johnson explained. Basically, this approach is intended to give a person a sense that it's worth it to "keep their guard up and act safe," he added.

Johnson and his team reviewed 15 studies including a total of 3,234 participants, all of which tested the effectiveness of a particular approach to reducing sexual risk behavior among HIV-infected individuals. To date, they note in their report in the Journal of the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes, evidence for such programs' effectiveness has been "mixed."

On average, the researchers found, the interventions increased participants' condom use by 16 percent, but had no effect on their number of sexual partners. The programs' effectiveness varied widely. Those that included a motivational component and skills training along with information on risk increased condom use by 32 percent, compared to just 5 percent for interventions that provided information only.

Younger people also showed more of a response to the interventions. Twenty-year-olds were 53 percent more likely to use condoms, on average, after participating, compared to an 11 percent increase in condom use among 40-year-olds.

Johnson and his team hypothesize that older people may tend to be in longer-term partnerships, "a factor that is known to increase resistance to change."

Overall, the researchers found, interventions were not effective for men who have sex with men. But because none of the studies that included this population featured motivational and skills components, they add, it's not clear if these approaches would be helpful, and there's no evidence to show that men who have sex with men are as a rule less responsive to such efforts.

" Perhaps the most surprising finding of this work is that more than two decades into the epidemic, there have been so few intervention randomized controlled trials that focus on people living with HIV," the researchers note.However, Johnson told Reuters Health, several such trials are underway. "I think this problem will be rectified very soon.

"SOURCE: Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes, April 15, 2006.

OPTIONS HIV PREVENTION TRAINING FOR PROVIDERS NOW ONLINE
May 2006

(I-Newswire) - This three-part Point of Care CME program provides clinicians with the opportunity to learn effective methods of HIV risk-reduction counseling from leading infectious disease experts, to practice these skills online, and then apply them in clinical practice. The program is designed for internal medicine physicians, infectious disease specialists, and other health care professionals who manage patients living with HIV/AIDS.  Visit www.OptionsTraining.org and start now!

·    Part 1 provides useful information on HIV risk reduction counseling practices and risk management strategies for HIV+ patients, through expert multimedia lectures and simulated physician-patient role-plays.
·    Part 2 enables you to practice optimal counseling approaches in interactive role-plays with standardized HIV+ patients.
·    Part 3 facilitates the transfer of this learning into your clinical practice by providing the opportunity to evaluate its effect on patient care. A monthly newsletter provides patient vignettes and relevant updates from experts.

Advisory Board

Fredrick L. Altice, MD, Yale University School of Medicine
Judith Currier, MD, University of California, Los Angeles
Emily J. Erbelding, MD, MPH, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine**
Paul A. Volberding, MD, San Francisco Veterans Administration Medical Center

**Participation by Dr. Erbelding as a member of the Advisory Board for MedCases’ HIV Risk Reduction CME Program for Clinicians does not constitute or imply endorsement by the Johns Hopkins University or the Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System.

The Options Protocol is a brief, clinician-delivered risk reduction intervention for patients living with HIV.  It can be readily implemented in the clinical care setting and has proven to be effective at reducing HIV risk behaviors.1,2

To learn more, visit http://www.OptionsTraining.org.
This continuing medical education activity is sponsored by MedCases, Inc. This project has been funded with Federal funds from the National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, under Contract No. HHS-N-278-2004-44090-C.

*MedCases, Inc. designates this educational activity titled Giving Patients Options: HIV Risk Reduction Training for Clinicians for a maximum of 8.5 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s) TM. Physicians should only claim credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

1Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2001). HIV Prevention Strategic Plan Through 2005.
2Janssen RS, Holtgrave DR, Valdiserri RO, Shepherd M, Gayle HD, De Cock KM. The Serostatus Approach to Fighting the HIV Epidemic: prevention strategies for infected individuals. Am J Public Health. Jul 2001;91(7):1019-1024.

© 2006 MedCases and University of Connecticut. All rights reserved.