Monica Ruiz, PhD has received recent recognition for her work on the effect of needle exchange programs on HIV transmission in DC. Her research has been featured in the Washington Post and the Huffington Post, among other publications. Her latest paper, titled "Impact Evaluation of a Policy Intervention for HIV Prevention in Washington, DC", was published in AIDS and Behavior. The abstract can be found below:
Syringe exchange programs (SEPs) lower HIV risk. From 1998 to 2007, Congress prohibited Washington, DC, from using municipal revenue for SEPs. We examined the impact of policy change on IDU-associated HIV cases. We used surveillance data for new IDU-associated HIV cases between September 1996 and December 2011 to build an ARIMA model and forecasted the expected number of IDU-associated cases in the 24 months following policy change. Interrupted time series analyses (ITSA) were used to assess epidemic impact of policy change. There were 176 IDU-associated HIV cases in the 2 years post-policy change; our model predicted 296 IDU-associated HIV cases had the policy remained in place, yielding a difference of 120 averted HIV cases. ITSA identified significant immediate (B = −6.0355, p = .0005) and slope changes (B = −.1241, p = .0427) attributed to policy change. Policy change is an effective structural intervention for HIV prevention when it facilitates the implementation of services needed by vulnerable populations.
Other publications by Dr. Ruiz include "Client-Identified needs and agency-provided services at a harm reduction community based organization in the District of Columbia", published in the Harm Reduction Journal, "Using Capture-Recapture Methods to Estimate the Population of People Who Inject Drugs in Washington, DC", published in AIDS Behavior and "The evidence does not speak for itself: The role of research evidence in shaping policy change for the implementation of publicly funded syringe exchange programs in three US cities", published in the International Journal of Drug Policy.