CREES Noon Lecture. “Women, Vulnerability, and HIV in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.”

The HIV/AIDS epidemic continues to grow in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, especially among key populations such as people who inject drugs and sex workers. This talk will present an overview of the epidemic in the region, with a special focus on the vulnerabilities that women face in regard to HIV risk and access to services. Results from fieldwork in Russia, Serbia, and Tajikistan will be presented. Using both qualitative and quantitative data, Dr. King examines some of the behavioral, as well as structural factors that influence HIV risk, involvement in HIV prevention activities, uptake of HIV testing, and linkage to HIV care and treatment services. Implications for public health interventions and future research directions will be highlighted.

Elizabeth King is an assistant professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. Her primary research interests are HIV prevention, access to HIV services for key affected populations, and gender-based violence. Prior to joining the U-M faculty in 2014, she completed a National Institutes of Health-funded postdoc and was a research scientist at the Yale School of Public Health. She holds a Ph.D. in health behavior from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a M.P.H. from the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at Yale University, and a B.A. in Slavic Languages and Literatures from the University of Kansas. She was a visiting scholar for two years in the Faculty of Sociology at St. Petersburg State University in Russia.

Sponsors: Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies; Center for European Studies.