Keynote: Andrew Marino, PhD
ESI Presentation: Alison Comfort, PhD
The role of health networks in disseminating knowledge about infant HIV testing in rural Uganda
Alison Comfort, PhD
Assistant Professor, University of California San Francisco
Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences
Dr. Comfort is an Assistant Professor at UCSF in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences. She was trained as a health economist at Harvard University. Her research focuses on understanding individual and social network factors affecting health beliefs and behaviors, with a particular focus on reproductive, maternal and child health outcomes. She leads several studies both in Uganda and the United States examining how social network composition and structure affect health beliefs and decision-making. She is currently conducting research in Uganda among mothers living with HIV to understand how their social networks affect both knowledge of infant HIV testing and decisions to seek prompt infant HIV testing. She is also examining the role of social networks for contraceptive decision-making among reproductive-age women with a focus on understanding potential differences by serostatus. Building on qualitative research among pregnant women in Uganda, she is investigating how social support affects timing of antenatal care initiation. Ultimately, Dr. Comfort’s body of work aims to inform the design of social network-based interventions to support desired care-seeking, with a particular focus on low-resource settings.