Centers

Crystal M. Fuller, an infectious disease epidemiologist, has primarily conducted HIV prevention and structural intervention research among drug users and other marginalized populations in low-income, urban communities. She has directed large-scale public health program and policy evaluation studies examining their impact on reducing individual and community-wide disease rates, particularly among those diseases and in communities where racial disparities persist. For nearly 8 years, Dr. Fuller has collaborated with the New York Academy of Medicine’s Harlem Community and Academic Partnership allowing her to conduct community-based participatory research (CBPR) throughout NYC. Using CBPR, Dr. Fuller recently completed a multilevel intervention in Harlem aimed at increasing access to sterile syringes via pharmacies among Black and Hispanic drug users, a New York State public health program which disproportionately lacked participation by minority drug users – a population most vulnerable to HIV and other blood borne pathogens. Dr. Fuller has also recently completed a study (i.e., RWJF H&SS seed grant) which examined the effect of high-risk behavior, social networks, and neighborhood characteristics on HIV seropositive status among drug users in New York City which has, in turn, led to a large-scale cohort study of the social predictors of injection drug use and subsequent HIV infection among street recruited drug users from 36 ethnographically mapped, low income neighborhoods in NYC (funded by NIH).