News Briefs

Briefs

Study to assess needs of women reentering
community after being incarcerated

UNC School of Nursing professor Dr. Cathie Fogel has received a $395,124 grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, a component of the National Institutes of Health, to assess the needs of women reentering the community after being incarcerated.

Statistics indicate that more than 96,000 women are currently in state and federal prisons, and more than 70 percent of these women are mothers with high risk of contracting HIV.

Fogel, the principal investigator of the study "Incarcerated Women, Parenting and HIV Risk," will examine issues such as parenting, family re-unification and HIV risk-reduction. She will evaluate community resources and assess a parenting program for mothers in prison. The research will be used to develop a large-scale intervention that reduces HIV risk in women prisoners and facilitates their successful reentry into the community.

Dr. Andrew Kaplan, an associate professor in UNC's School of Medicine, and Anna Schyette, a clinical associate professor in UNC's School of Social Work, are co-investigators of the study.

Fogel's scholarship is in the areas of health disparities and health promotion and protection of vulnerable women, including incarcerated women. She also focuses on the prevention of STDs and HIV in women and the experiences of women living with HIV.

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Free, confidential, rapid HIV testing
to be offered at Apple Chill Street Fair

In an effort to help more people learn their HIV status, confidential and rapid HIV testing will be available to the public at the Apple Chill Street Fair in Chapel Hill on April 23.

This testing is a follow-up to HIV testing events held during last year's Apple Chill and the Festifall Street Fair in October, and campus-based testing events at UNC and N.C. State University.

Nearly 700 people have received HIV testing through these outreach testing events.

Testing will be available from 1 p.m. until 6 p.m. at the UNC Center for AIDS Research booth, located on West Franklin Street in front of University Baptist Church. The test is administered using an oral swab and does not involve needles or the collection of blood. Results are ready within the same visit. Testing is free.

The testing event is sponsored by the UNC Center for AIDS Research, Project STYLE and the Student Health Action Coalition.

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News Services contact: Deb Saine, (919) 962-8415 or deborah_saine@unc.edu