Susan Sherman
Johns Hopkins University, MD·Public Health & Epidemiology
Drug overdoses killed nearly 92,000 Americans in 2020. Most of these deaths were driven by a drug supply dominated by fentanyl and related synthetic opioids.
- Fields
Public Health & Epidemiology
Medicine & Clinical Research
Social Science
- Topics
overdose prevention
opioid epidemic
fentanyl
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Jul 2027
What they work on
- Adapt Mobile SPARC outreach services for women who use drugs by identifying factors that help or hinder service use, through in-depth interviews with 40 women and 5 staff members.
- Evaluate whether expanding Mobile SPARC into new Baltimore neighborhoods reduces nonfatal overdose and increases clinical care and drug treatment among 400 women over 18 months.
- Characterize the implementation and cost-effectiveness of Mobile SPARC using the RE-AIM framework (Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation, Maintenance) to guide future scale-up.
- Test, in a stepped-wedge cluster randomized trial of 600 people who inject drugs, whether a van offering on-site PrEP, peer navigation, and drug checking increases PrEP engagement and reduces HIV risk behaviors.
- Determine the incremental cost-effectiveness of the mobile PrEP intervention in terms of HIV cases averted, compared with standard care.
More about the research
People who use drugs often have trouble getting medical care, and they also face high risks of HIV and hepatitis C. This research tests whether mobile vans that bring low-barrier services directly into neighborhoods can reduce overdose and connect people to care. Low-barrier means people can use the services without appointments or strict conditions. The two projects study two groups in Baltimore: women who use drugs and people who inject drugs.
Why it matters
Overdose and HIV continue to rise among people who use drugs, a group that is often poorly served by clinics. These studies could show whether mobile vans offering naloxone, PrEP, drug checking, and peer support reduce overdose and HIV risk at reasonable cost. If they do, health departments and outreach programs in other cities could adopt the models.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Implementing and evaluating the impact of novel, vanbased, low barrier services on overdose among women who use drugs: The SHOUT study.
NIH · Sep 2022 – Jul 2027
Impact of a novel HIV peer navigationand overdose prevention intervention on engagement in the HIV prevention and treatment cascade.
NIH · Sep 2021 – Jun 2027
Closest labs
Hansel Tookes
University of Miami, FL·Public Health & Epidemiology
Determine whether the Comprehensive-TeleHealth-concieRge model increases engagement in HIV prevention compared with offsite referral plus peer navigation, in a randomized trial of 350 people who inject drugs recruited at a low barrier clinic in Miami.
Oluwaseun Falade-Nwulia
Johns Hopkins University, MD·Public Health & Epidemiology·Early-career
Adapt an existing social network intervention to rural settings with community input, so peer educators can distribute HIV self-testing kits and link people who use drugs to telemedicine care at community organizations.
Vivian Go
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC·Public Health & Epidemiology
Test whether the brief alcohol intervention (BAI), counseling based on Motivational Interviewing and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, improves PrEP persistence and adherence in a randomized trial of 564 PrEP users with unhealthy drinking in Hanoi, Vietnam.
The school
Johns Hopkins University: 100 labs on PI Pages, $4.1B a year on research, 622 research doctorates a year.
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