UCLA behavioral scientist Thomas J. Coates to speak on HIV prevention at seventh annual Center for Health and Behavior lecture April 15

UCLA behavioral scientist Thomas J. Coates to speak on HIV prevention at seventh annual Center for Health and Behavior lecture April 15March 30, 2009Jaime Winne Alvarez jlwinne@syr.edu

Thomas J. Coates, director of the Program in Global Health and the Michael and Sue Steinberg Endowed Professor of Global AIDS Research within the Division of Infectious Diseases in the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, will deliver the seventh annual lecture of the Center for Health and Behavior (CHB) at Syracuse University on Wednesday, April 15, at 7 p.m. in Room 001 of the Life Sciences Complex.

Coates will speak on “HIV Prevention Local and Global: How to Make it Work Better.” The lecture is free and open to the public. Parking is available for $2 in the Booth Garage. Guests should alert the parking attendant that they are attending the CHB annual lecture in order to take advantage of the discounted rate.

Coates is an expert on HIV prevention, the relationship of prevention and treatment for HIV, and public policies affecting HIV prevention and care. He co-founded the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies (CAPS) at the University of California, San Francisco, in 1986 and was the center’s director from 1991-2003. Coates was also founding executive director of the UCSF AIDS Research Institute, leading the institute from 1996-2003. His domestic work has focused on a variety of populations, and he is currently finishing a nationwide clinical trial of an experimental HIV preventive intervention focused on high-risk men.

With funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the World Health Organization (WHO), Coates led a randomized, controlled trial to determine the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of HIV voluntary counseling and testing for individuals and couples in Kenya, Tanzania and Trinidad. He is now directing a 46-community randomized clinical trial in South Africa, Tanzania, Thailand and Zimbabwe to determine the impact of strategies for destigmatizing HIV on HIV incidence community-wide. He also directs the behavioral core of the National Institutes of Health-funded HIV Prevention Trials Network and is conducting policy research domestically and internationally. He was elected to the Institute of Medicine in 2000 and to the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2004.

“We are deeply honored to host Dr. Coates, who is without a doubt the single most influential behavioral scientist in the HIV-AIDS arena. His scientific and humanitarian contributions date back to the early days of the pandemic. Over the years, he has contributed to science, practice, education, administration and policy-always at the highest levels of excellence. His unparalleled research career, coupled with his visionary and courageous leadership, exemplifies the principles of Scholarship in Action,” says Michael Carey, CHB director and Dean’s Professor of the Sciences in the Department of Psychology in The College of Arts and Sciences.

The CHB annual lecture brings to campus an outstanding scientist whose work illustrates the very best in health research and is designed to appeal to students, faculty, staff and the Syracuse community. For information about past lecturers, visit http://www.chb.syr.edu/lecture.php. For more information on this year’s lecture, contact the CHB at (315) 443-3657 or bbbrooke@syr.edu.

The Center for Health and Behavior is an all-University center that facilitates and supports research on the behavioral and psychosocial aspects of health, including topics such as the health effects of aging, alcohol use, arthritis, diabetes, heart disease, HIV, smoking and stress. Scientists in the center often develop and evaluate programs to promote health in children, adolescents, college students, adults and families. Research-in laboratories, hospitals, schools and community-based agencies and in collaboration with colleagues in the United States and abroad-is supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health and public and private sponsors. For more information, visit http://chb.syr.edu.