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Spotlight

NIH WALS Presentation by CSDE affiliate, Martina Morris - Local Acts, Global Consequences: Networks and the Spread of HIV

On April 25, Dr. Martina Morris spoke at the NIH Wednesday Afternoon Lecture Series.

For HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STI), the potential for epidemic spread depends on connectivity in the underlying sexual network. Since most people have few partners, traditional STI theory and prevention strategies have focused on the role of "core groups" and "superspreaders" in establishing the connectivity needed to sustain transmission. This has been a successful approach for curable STI in low prevalence settings, but is not as effective in explaining or intervening in a generalized epidemic, as HIV has become in many sub-Saharan African countries. In this context, transmission is well established in the broad group of less active persons. We show how network connectivity can emerge in such networks, with the central role played by concurrent partnerships-partnerships that overlap in time - rather than high rates of partner change. This has direct implications for HIV and STI prevention. One is that a small change in behavior may be quite effective in this context, making behavior change a more viable prevention target than many believe. Another is that the right behavior change message is not to "have fewer partners," but, as Ugandan HIV messages put it 10 years ago, "zero grazing." We use a combination of empirical data (comparing Thailand, Uganda and the US, and racial groups in the US) and simulation to demonstrate these principles, and their relevance to the disparities in HIV prevalence, both worldwide and within the United States.

Dr. Morris is an outstanding social scientist and an excellent speaker. She is an expert in social networks, HIV/AIDS epidemic dynamics, and social inequalities. With funding from NICHD and NIDA, she has done creative work in the mathematical modeling of HIV/AIDS and in linking mathematical models to behavioral data.

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