Research by CSDE Scientist Dr. Deven Hamilton and CSDE Affiliates Dr. Samuel Jenness (Epidemiology, Emory University) and Dr. Steven Goodreau (Anthropology, UW), along with colleagues, was recently turned into an infographic (here), helpful for communicating their research to policy makers. Their research takes a closer look at HIV in the Southern U.S. and what efforts are needed to reach the Ending the HIV Epidemic (EHE) goals for reduced HIV incidence in the region. Findings dig into EHE efforts in the South, evaluating the impact of hypothetical improvements in ART as well as estimating the potential impact of expanding PrEP coverage among adults and adolescents — all with an eye toward achieving federal EHE goals. Findings have previously been released in several articles, including a first in BMC Public Health and a second in Plos One (previously featured by CSDE).

CSDE Affiliate Dr. Aditya Ramesh (History) published an article in the Journal of Urban History, titled “The Plague in Madras: The Making of an ‘Immune’ City“, which examines the city of Madras, long studied for remaining largely free from the plague pandemic, which hit colonial India especially hard in the latter half of the 1890s. The absent epidemic in Madras suggests new ways to understand plague in colonial India and the relationship between the etiology of epidemics and cities more broadly. Colonial officials assumed that the plague would affect Madras in a similar fashion to the deadly outbreaks in Bombay and Hong Kong. The article follows varied explanations for the absence of the plague, showing how tropical environments were hardly inherently vulnerable to disease. Rather, the disease was constituted in specific urban environments, which had implications on understanding of disease vulnerability and immunity.