Research Projects

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International Collaboration

Drs. Yarber, Milhausen, and Crosby team up with Dr. Sanders and Dr. Graham

Professor William Yarber and Dr. Yarber's students Robin Milhausen (PhD '04) of Guelph University of Ontario Canada and Richard Crosby (PhD '98) of the University of Kentucky have teamed up with Stephanie Sanders of the Kinsey Institute and Cynthia Graham of Oxford University, United Kingdom to pioneer research on male condom use and errors.

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Research Projects & News

2011 fall – Doctoral candidate Beth Ann Walker was recognized in Boston, Massachusetts on November 18, 2011 as the second-place award recipient of a major contest sponsored by the Gerontological Society of America. Walker won second place for her design project aimed at transforming an android mobile phone device for use by adults aged 55 and over. The “Aging Means Business Student Design Contest” invited undergraduate and graduate students from across the nation to showcase their design ingenuities by proposing an original product for older adults, based on a transformation of an existing device or an entirely new creation. Walker was one of 42 applicants.
The primary goal of her proposal was to design a user-friendly Android phone application via App Inventor for Android utilizing principles of gerontechnology in order to enable older adults to benefit from the latest cell phone technologies available. <more>
2011 fall – The Rural Center for AIDS/STD Prevention announced plans to honor the legacy of C. Everett Koop, M.D., former U.S. surgeon general, with the establishment of an endowed research grant that will support doctoral student research related to AIDS/HIV prevention.
Beginning in the 2012-2013 academic year, the Surgeon General C. Everett Koop HIV/AIDS Research Grant will be awarded annually by RCAP on a competitive basis to support the research of doctoral students nationally. <more>
2011 fall – The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) awarded the State of Indiana a five-year, $8.3 million federal grant for the IPRC-led project, which will work to integrate drug and alcohol screening, brief intervention, and referral to treatment (SBIRT) services into the routine standard of care at community health centers (CHCs) and community mental health centers (CMHCs) throughout Indiana.
2011 fall – Each year, the IPRC conducts the Annual Survey of Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drug Use by Indiana Children and Adolescents. For over 20 years, this information has provided accurate data to direct prevention funding and programming in Indiana. The 2011 Survey questioned 152,678 students in public and private schools about their use of various drugs. Among 12th graders, more males than females reported using the following drugs: cigarettes, over-the-counter drugs, marijuana and prescription painkillers. <more>
2009 fall – Laurel D. Stevenson, Chia-ling Hung, Dr. Alyce D. Fly, Dr. Julie A. Shertzer, Dr. Janet P. Wallace, and Dr. Susan E. Middlestadt presented the following abstract at the American Public Health Association conference this past fall: “Whose opinion do we care about when it comes to healthy eating? A qualitative comparison of men and women.” Also, Laurel, along with Omar L. Rodriquez, Pamela VanDeusen, and Dr. Susan E. Middlestadt presented an abstract entitled “ Factors underlying intention to donate to Caring for Children in Belize: A qualitative inquiry.”
2009 fall – A School Faculty Research Support Program (FRSP) Award provided funds for a group of faculty members, Ruth Gassman, Jeanne Johnston, Susan Middlestadt, Marieke Van Puymbroeck and Ahmed YoussefAgha to develop and administer an online health risk and wellness survey to all HPER undergraduate students. The survey contains items that pertain to a variety of health domains, including but not limited to substance use, nutrition, sexual and reproductive health, physical activity, and mental health.
2009 fall - According to the ASHA newsletter (November 2009 Issue), Dr. David Lohrmann's 2008 Public Health Reports article, ‘A Complementary Ecological Model of the Coordinated School Health Program,’ provided the first major re-conceptualization of this approach in over 20 years.
2009 fall - The 7th edition of the Human Sexuality: Diversity in Contemporary America was published in November 2009. Dr. William L. Yarber is the lead author, along with co-authors Dr. Barbara W. Sayad, California State University, Monterey Bay and the late Dr. Bryan Strong, University of California, Santa Cruz. This text is among the most widely adopted college human sexuality textbooks in the United States with it being used in over 250 colleges and universities. It is the first text to achieve a full integration of cutting-edge research with a sexual affirmation approach that encourages students to become proactive in and about their own sexual well-being. In striving to represent the contemporary, diverse world that students encounter outside the classroom, the text is lauded by both students and instructors for providing the most integrated and nonjudgmental view of sexual variation available. A systematic review of college human sexuality textbooks found that this book was among the top texts in presenting a balanced gender perspective of human sexuality.
2009 fall – Dr. Lesa Huber has been nominated for Member-At-Large for the national Association for Gerontology in Higher Education. She is also part of a research team that received $400,000 from the NSF to investigate how to help older adults understand about staying safe online. They propose to answer a set of topical and methodological questions to move the frontier on our understanding of the interaction of technology, risk and older adults.
2009 fall – Dr. David Lohrmann’s recent presentations include: “Universities and Public Schools Investing in Our Kid's Futures: A Healthy Portfolio with Interest” with Dr. Catherine Sherwood-Laughlin and Jennifer Staab of the Monroe County Community School Corporation and “Enabling Student Health Information Exchange” with Peter Grogg of the IU Student Health Center.
2009 summer – Dr. Michael Reece has been invited to present as part of the Presidential Symposium panel at the upcoming International Academy of Sex Research (IASR) conference. The meeting will be held in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in August 2009. Presenters of the symposium (“Correlates of Impulsive/Compulsive Sexual Behavior”) have been selected by IASR President Dr. Eli Coleman, Director of the Program in Human Sexuality at the University of Minnesota School of Medicine.
2009 summer – Drs. Brian Dodge and Michael Reece has been invited to attend the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) scientific meeting entitled “Advancing HIV Prevention Intervention Research with MSM”. The event will be held in Atlanta, Georgia, in August 2009. The NIMH and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have partnered to hold this meeting of experts at the National HIV Prevention Conference in order to address the HIV prevention needs of men who have sex with men (MSM) living in the United States. This event has been arranged by Dr. Cynthia Grossman, Program Officer at NIMH.
2009 summer - The Center for Sexual Health Promotion actively represented Indiana University at the recent International Society for Sexually Transmitted Diseases Research (ISSTDR) conference in London, England, in July. In her invited symposium, "New Horizons in STD Testing," CSHP core faculty member Dr. Barbara Van Der Pol (IU School of Medicine) provided data regarding the use of a universal specimen collection material for STD diagnostics. This universal medium performed as well as the collection kits provided by manufacturers of diagnostic test kits. Use of a universal medium is likely to encourage screening in settings that have not traditionally provided STD testing and improve provision of services to populations at need. In another invited session, "Vaginal Swabs are In," Dr. Van Der Pol presented data that coincides with the CDC STD Diagnostic Guidelines that recommend use of vaginal swabs rather than cervical specimen as the sample of choice for screening. This advancement is critical to expanding the coverage of STD testing beyond clinical settings. Use of vaginal swabs will encourage innovative testing strategies such as home based sampling and community based service provision. The talks were sponsored by BD and Abbott Pharmaceuticals. During the meeting, Dr. Van Der Pol was one of three individuals elected to the ISSTDR Board of Directors. During her 6-year term, she will be involved in setting the course of future meetings and the Society as a whole. Other CSHP members who presented at the conference included Associate Director Dr. Brian Dodge, doctoral students Joshua Rosenberger and Alexis Roth-Graneros, former doctoral student Dr. Amanda Tanner (Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health) and core faculty members Drs. J. Dennis Fortenberry and Greg Zimet (IU School of Medicine).
2009 spring - William Yarber and Dr. Yarber’s students Robin Milhausen, PhD ’04, and Richard Crosby, PhD ’98, have teamed up with Stephanie Sanders, Associate Director of the Kinsey Institute and Cynthia Graham of Oxford University to pioneer research into condom use.
2009 spring - Ms. Erin Cooperman, JD, AmeriCorps Program Coordinator, has secured an award from the Indiana Commission on Community Service and Volunteerism for $126,000 to support the AmeriCorps Improving Health throughout Indiana program for the 2009-2010 program year.
2009 spring - As the 2008-09 Alliance Scholar, Dr. Mohammad Torabi delivered a web presentation on the topic of “Prevention is our Mission: Quality of Life is our Passion,” and delivered the National Alliance Scholar Presentation at the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance National Conference in Tampa, Florida. This presentation entitled, “Tobacco: The Common Enemy and a Gateway Drug,” will be published in a national refereed journal. This manuscript is co-authored with Drs. Mi Kyung Jun, Carole Nowicke, Barbara Seitz, and Ruth Gassman.
2009 spring - Dr. Michael Reece was selected as a recipient of a grant from the most recent cycle of School of HPER Faculty Research Support Program. He will serve as Principal Investigator of “Factors Impacting Intentions to be Tested for Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV-2) Among Women,” together with Dr. Brian Dodge of the Department of Applied Health Science, Dr. Barbara Van Der Pol of the Department of Infectious Disease at the Indiana University School of Medicine, Dr. Greg Zimet of the Department of Pediatrics at the Indiana University School of Medicine, and Alexis Roth-Graneros of the Department of Applied Health Science. The project is a collaborative effort among the Center for Sexual Health Promotion, the Indiana University School of Medicine, and The Bell Flower Clinic of the Marion County Health Department. The data from this pilot study will be directly integrated into a developing series of linked R01 grant proposals to be submitted to the National Institutes of Health.
2009 spring - Dr. Brian Dodge has been awarded a R21 research grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) entitled “Sexual Health Among Bisexual Men” for $425,000. The aims of the study are: 1. To identify the individual and socio-cultural determinants related to their sexual interactions that increase risk of HIV acquisition through in-depth interviews with a diverse sample of bisexual men in an underserved area of the Midwestern United States (Indianapolis); 2. To evaluate the feasibility of engaging a diverse sample of bisexual men, in terms of recruitment and participation, in a multi-method study aimed at understanding the levels of risk to sexual health in order to inform a subsequent sexual health intervention; 3. To acquire information useful for designing relevant, accessible, and culturally-appropriate HIV/STI prevention information to be used in a subsequent grant proposal aimed at promoting sexual health for bisexual men via interventions tailored to the needs of these men. Team members of this developmental research project include Dr. Barbara Van Der Pol (Department of Infectious Disease, IU School of Medicine), Dr. Michael Reece (IU Department of Applied Health Science, School of HPER), Dr. J. Dennis Fortenberry (Department of Pediatrics, IU School of Medicine), Dr. David Malebranche (Department of General Medicine, Emory University School of Medicine), and Mr. Omar Martinez (IU Schools of Law and HPER). The grant is sponsored by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).
2009 spring – Dr. Zobeida Bonilla-Vega and Dr. Fernando Ona are co-leading a collaboration of the School of HPER and the Batey Relief Alliance to facilitate activities that are consistent with the mission of the Batey Relief Alliance; with the service, teaching, and research activities of HPER and with the needs of vulnerable communities in the Dominican Republic where BRA conducts its work. BRA is a multidisciplinary initiative, which already involves faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences in addition to departments throughout the School of HPER.
2009 spring – The preliminary findings from Dr. Brian Dodge’s 2008 School of HPER Faculty Research Support Program grant award have been accepted for fast-track publication in International Journal of STD & AIDS. In the paper, “Field Collection of Rectal Samples for Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI) Diagnostics Among Men Who Have Sex with Men (MSM),” the study team reports an overall high level of acceptability and comfort-level involved with self-sampling for rectal STI among MSM in community-based venues. Co-authors include Dr. Barbara Van Der Pol (Department of Infectious Disease at the IU School of Medicine), Drs. Michael Reece and Debby Herbenick (Center for Sexual Health Promotion at IUB), doctoral students Joshua Rosenberger and Alexis Roth-Graneros (Department of Applied Health Science at IUB), and senior scientist Dr. J. Dennis Fortenberry (Division of Adolescent Medicine at the IU School of Medicine).
2009 spring – For the first time, the Indiana Prevention Resource Center (IPRC) will be including questions on the Indiana version of the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS), a national survey sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The 2009 Indiana version of the survey will include 12 questions contributed by researchers at the IPRC ranging from alcohol use and purchasing to prescription and over-the-counter drug use. Gambling behavior questions will also be asked.
2009 spring – Dr. Carole Nowicke assisted with a PBS program entitled Tuba U: Baso Profundo which premiered April 26, 2009. Dr. Nowicke has also been invited to speak at the first Chicago Brass Festival with her research partner John Almeida.
2009 spring – Dr. Brian Dodge has been invited to attend and present at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) scientific meeting entitled “Conference on Behavior Change in the Era of HIV”. The event will be held in Atlanta, Georgia, in February 2009. The conference is funded by a R13 grant to Dr. Dolores Albarracin, Professor of Psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Academic Partner of the Center for Sexual Health Promotion at Indiana University.

Research Projects & News Archive

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