Spotlight - Robert W. Wood
The Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) is thrilled to welcome Dr. Bob Wood as Associate Director of the Sociobehavioral and Prevention Research Core (SPRC). With his background and experience as a physician and public health professional, Dr. Wood is ideally suited to provide guidance on SPRC directions and activities. Dr. Wood received his MD from the University of Rochester, New York, in 1970. As a physician, Dr. Wood takes an interest in the complex medical problems associated with HIV/AIDS treatment and care. As a public health professional, he has been the Director of the HIV/AIDS Prevention Program at Public Health—Seattle & King County since its inception in 1986, and has been actively involved in addressing issues related to HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, and care at the local, state, and national levels. Dr. Wood also has a personal interest in issues related to HIV/AIDS and is very active in the Seattle community. In the late 1970s, Dr. Wood was among the organizers of a group of about 100 lesbian, gay, and transgendered physicians in the Seattle area and was also one of the founding members of the national Gay & Lesbian Medical Association. In the 1980s, Dr. Wood helped set up the Madison Clinic at Harborview Medical Center, which focuses on providing medical care and social services for persons living with HIV/AIDS, and was involved with the creation of the Northwest AIDS Foundation, now called Lifelong AIDS Alliance. Dr. Wood has taken the lead in research projects related to HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, and care, serving as the primary investigator on several activities. These include a CDC-funded AIDS Prevention/Risk Reduction Demonstration Project to create a model AIDS Prevention program and to study the effectiveness of five different disease control strategies; a NIDA project focused on developing interventions for intravenous drug users and their partners as well as studying their impacts; and, a CDC grant to Public Health—Seattle & King County that looked at integrating HIV Counseling and Testing with Hepatitis services. Dr. Wood’s expertise and interest in prevention research and in how people make decisions about their sexual behavior will provide an important contribution to the mission of the Sociobehavioral and Prevention Research Core (SPRC). He will also provide a focus on some of the critical issues still facing HIV/AIDS prevention and care including the challenges associated with behavioral disinhibition; the disparities in HIV among different racial groups locally and within the US; and the community complacency that has come along with a decreased perception of risk and an increased focus on other threats such as terrorism, SARS, the West Nile Virus, and avian influenza.
Public Health--Seattle & King County
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