Judith Hahn, PhD, MA
My research interests lie in the epidemiology at the intersection of substance use and infectious diseases. My research team is currently conducting a NIH-funded R01 study to examine changes in alcohol consumption in the course of HIV care in Uganda. We are using novel biomarkers of alcohol consumption to gain objective measurements of alcohol consumption, as well as in-depth interviews to examine reasons for changes in alcohol consumption. We have built on the Uganda Alcohol Research Collaboration on HIV (ARCH) cohort to (1) evaluate the safety and tolerability of TB preventive therapy for HIV-infected alcohol users, (2) compare HIV-infected alcohol-users' adherence to a 6-month versus a 3-month regimen, and (3) conduct decision analytic modeling to determine whether the benefits of TB preventive therapy outweigh the risks in this population. Our results will provide important new data for revisiting the question of how to best deliver TB preventive therapy to alcohol using, HIV-infected persons at high risk for TB disease.