Emily Arnold, PhD

Adjunct Professor
Medicine
+1 415 502-1000 ext. 14610

My research interests lie at the intersections of culture and health behavior, particularly as this relates to gender, sexuality, and HIV-related risk behavior. Much of my work has been concerned with sexual culture among gay and bisexual men, and its influence on sexual identity, sexual behavior, and HIV-related risk practices. I am also interested in identifying culturally appropriate HIV prevention intervention mechanisms to reach young gay and bisexual men. Over the past several years, I have also become committed to using community collaborative research approaches to alleviate health disparities, particularly those impacting ethnic and sexual minority communities. Building on my interest in teaching and mentoring, I have also become formally involved in the Visiting Professors program at CAPS, which is supported through several R25 training mechanisms, and is devoted to alleviating health disparities by broadening the pipeline of scholars from marginalized communities who are able to conduct rigorous research.

One of my primary research agendas has been related to examining social networks and social support in the ballroom community, which consists of family-like houses, in the Bay Area. With additional quantitative training I obtained through my K award, I have explored the implications that houses and gay families, operationalized as social networks, may have on the provision of social support for young African American gay and bisexual men and its association with HIV-related risk behavior. This innovative project consisted of a two year ethnographic study to provide the foundation for the development of population-specific measures of social networks and social support, which were then fielded in a cross sectional quantitative survey in the final phase of the study. The ballroom community offers HIV prevention researchers and interventionists a unique and culturally appropriate avenue for reaching young African American gay and bisexual men, building on indigenous forms of social support already circulating through social networks in the community.

Another area of research involves the development and testing of HIV prevention interventions for African American men who have sex with men (MSM), including those who do not necessarily identify as gay. I am currently the Principal Investigator on a NIMH R01 to rigorously test such an intervention using a randomized controlled trial. Together with CAL-PEP, a community-based organization in Oakland, we have developed the Bruthas Project, a four session counseling intervention for African American men who have sex with men and women (MSM/W). As part of the randomized controlled trial, we have recruited 400 African American MSM/W across the Bay Area, 200 of whom receive the Bruthas Project intervention, 200 of whom receive standard HIV testing and counseling. The men are followed over 9 months, with assessments at baseline, 3 months and 6 months follow-up. We hope to demonstrate that men enrolled in the Bruthas Project have less HIV-related sexual risk behavior and more regular HIV testing than men enrolled in the control group. We have also recently been funded to explore the unique issues facing HIV positive men in our cohort, to learn about their experiences with accessing and remaining engaged in care, so that we may be able to develop additional sessions to support healthy practices for those men who are already diagnosed with HIV.

In recent years, I have become interested in issues pertaining to health care systems through my work with the AIDS Policy Research Center at CAPS, particularly focusing on publicly-funded sources of healthcare insurance for the poor and chronically underserved. As part of examining the impact of the Affordable Care Act on the accessibility of HIV-specialty care and treatment for low income individuals living with HIV in the State of California, we conducted a qualitative study of healthcare providers, county-level adminstrators, case workers, and people living with HIV to ascertain facilitators and barriers to remaining in care. This work was recently published in PLoS One. We are currently engaged in a follow up study examining a health insurance premium payment program for low income people with HIV which is administered by the State Office of AIDS. This is also a qualitative study and we will be broadly disseminating findings from this evaluation to policy makers, advocates, as well as other policy researchers throughout the State of California.

Publications: 

Mentoring Early-Career Investigators of HIV/STI Health Disparities Research: A Study Examining the CAPS Visiting Professors Program.

Health education & behavior : the official publication of the Society for Public Health Education

Arreola S, Padilla M, Arnold EA, Danley D, Lightfoot M, Woods WJ, Neilands TB

Integrating community health workers into HIV care clinics: a qualitative study with health system leaders and clinicians in the Southern United States.

BMC health services research

Fuller SM, Arnold EA, Xavier J, Ibe CA, Steward WT, Myers JJ, Rebchook G, Koester KA

Ethical Issues in Treating Substance Use Disorders: Counselor Perspectives.

Journal of psychoactive drugs

Sorensen JL, McCuistian C, Fokuo JK, Del Pino HE, Smith JD, Elahi S, Arnold EA

Syndemic Theory and Its Use in Developing Health Interventions and Programming: A Scoping Review.

Current HIV/AIDS reports

Outram SM, Koester KA, Moran L, Steward WT, Arnold EA

Point-of-care urine tenofovir test predicts future HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis discontinuation among young users.

AIDS (London, England)

Martinson T, Montoya R, Moreira C, Kuncze K, Sassaman K, Heise MJ, Glidden DV, Amico KR, Arnold EA, Buchbinder SP, Ewart LD, Carrico A, Wang G, Okochi H, Scott HM, Gandhi M, Spinelli MA

A Co-Created Tool to Help Counter Health Misinformation for Spanish-Speaking Communities in the San Francisco Bay Area.

International journal of environmental research and public health

Abascal Miguel L, Maiorana A, Saggese GSR, Campbell CK, Bourdeau B, Arnold EA

A guaranteed income intervention to improve the health and financial well-being of low-income black emerging adults: study protocol for the Black Economic Equity Movement randomized controlled crossover trial.

Frontiers in public health

Lippman SA, Libby MK, Nakphong MK, Arons A, Balanoff M, Mocello AR, Arnold EA, Shade SB, Qurashi F, Downing A, Moore A, Dow WH, Lightfoot MA

Examining the Impact of State-Level Factors on HIV Testing for Medicaid Enrollees with Schizophrenia.

Journal of acquired immune deficiency syndromes (1999)

Thomas MD, Vittinghoff E, Koester KA, Dahiya P, Riano NS, Cournos F, Dawson L, Olfson M, Pinals DA, Crystal S, Walkup J, Shade S, Mangurian C, Arnold EA

Insights from Drug Checking Programs: Practicing Bootstrap Public Health Whilst Tailoring to Local Drug User Needs.

International journal of environmental research and public health

Ondocsin J, Ciccarone D, Moran L, Outram S, Werb D, Thomas L, Arnold EA

Ethical Dilemmas Facing Substance Use Counselors During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Substance abuse : research and treatment

McCuistian C, Fokuo JK, Dumoit Smith J, Sorensen JL, Arnold EA

Characteristics and Trends in HIV Testing Among Medicaid Enrollees Diagnosed as Having Schizophrenia.

Psychiatric services (Washington, D.C.)

Walkup J, Thomas MD, Vittinghoff E, Hermida R, Crystal S, Arnold EA, Dahiya P, Olfson M, Cournos F, Dawson L, Dilley J, Bazazi A, Mangurian C

Socio-Ecological Influences on HIV Care Engagement: Perspectives of Young Black Men Who Have Sex with Men Living with HIV in the Southern US.

Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities

Sterrett-Hong EM, Crosby R, Johnson M, Jennings Mayo-Wilson L, Arroyo C, Machinga R, Brewer R, Srivastava A, Smith A, Arnold E

Impacts of COVID-19 on HIV/AIDS-Related Services in California.

Journal of the International Association of Providers of AIDS Care

Koester KA, Fuller SM, Steward WT, Arnold EA

We are Family: A Feasibility and Acceptability Study of an HIV Prevention Intervention With the House Ball and Gay Family Communities.

Journal of acquired immune deficiency syndromes (1999)

Arnold EA, Saberi P, Wong JO, Pollack LM, Neilands TB, Benjamin M, Lockett G, Kegeles SM

Non-parental Adults and Sexual Health Behaviors Among Young Minority Men: A Qualitative Examination.

Frontiers in psychology

Sterrett-Hong EM, DeBow J, Caton E, Harris M, Brewer R, Roberts E, Marchal M, Tauzer M, Arnold EA

Study protocol: a pilot randomised waitlist-controlled trial of a dyadic mobile health intervention for black sexual-minority male couples with HIV in the USA.

BMJ open

Kim HC, Pollack LM, Saberi P, Neilands TB, Arnold EA, Bright DJ, Williams RW, Kegeles SM, Tan JY

HIV Testing and Counseling at U.S. Substance Use Treatment Facilities: A Missed Opportunity for Early Identification.

Psychiatric services (Washington, D.C.)

Riano NS, Borowsky HM, Arnold EA, Olfson M, Walkup JT, Vittinghoff E, Cournos F, Dawson L, Bazazi AR, Crystal S, Mangurian C

The case for prescribing PrEP in community mental health settings.

The lancet. HIV

Sudler A, Cournos F, Arnold E, Koester K, Riano NS, Dilley J, Liu A, Mangurian C

Stigma Experienced by Transgender Women of Color in Their Dating and Romantic Relationships: Implications for Gender-based Violence Prevention Programs.

Journal of interpersonal violence

Gamarel KE, Jadwin-Cakmak L, King WM, Lacombe-Duncan A, Trammell R, Reyes LA, Burks C, Rivera B, Arnold E, Harper GW

Attitudes about community pharmacy access to HIV prevention medications in California.

Journal of the American Pharmacists Association : JAPhA

Koester KA, Saberi P, Fuller SM, Arnold EA, Steward WT

Medical-Legal Partnerships to Support Continuity of Care for Immigrants Impacted by HIV: Lessons Learned from California.

Journal of immigrant and minority health

Fuller SM, Steward WT, Martinez O, Arnold EA

Identifying Opportunities for Collaboration Across the Social Sciences to Reach the 10-10-10: A Multilevel Approach.

Journal of acquired immune deficiency syndromes (1999)

Vincent W, Sevelius J, Lippman SA, Linnemayr S, Arnold EA

A Randomized Controlled Trial to Reduce HIV-Related Risk in African American Men Who Have Sex with Men and Women: the Bruthas Project.

Prevention science : the official journal of the Society for Prevention Research

Arnold EA, Kegeles SM, Pollack LM, Neilands TB, Cornwell SM, Stewart WR, Benjamin M, Weeks J, Lockett G, Smith CD, Operario D

The Impact Of Medicaid Expansion On People Living With HIV And Seeking Behavioral Health Services.

Health affairs (Project Hope)

Arnold EA, Fuller S, Kirby V, Steward WT

Understanding Prevention for HIV Positive Gay Men: Innovative Approaches in Addressing the AIDS Epidemic, Leo Wilton, Editor

"HIV within the House Ball Community and the Promise of Community-based Social Structures for Intervention and Support"

Arnold, EA and Bailey, MM

Spirituality/religiosity, substance use, and HIV testing among young black men who have sex with men.

Drug and alcohol dependence

Carrico AW, Storholm ED, Flentje A, Arnold EA, Pollack LM, Neilands TB, Rebchook GM, Peterson JL, Eke A, Johnson W, Kegeles SM

Mental Health Among Parents of Children With Critical Congenital Heart Defects: A Systematic Review.

Journal of the American Heart Association

Woolf-King SE, Anger A, Arnold EA, Weiss SJ, Teitel D

HIV transmission in MSM: considerations for PrEP scale-up.

The lancet. HIV

Arnold EA, Steward WT

The Development of a Counseling-Based HIV Prevention Intervention for African American Men Who Have Sex With Men and Women: The Bruthas Project.

AIDS education and prevention : official publication of the International Society for AIDS Education

Arnold EA, Operario D, Cornwell S, Benjamin M, Smith CD, Lockett G, Kegeles SM

Facilitators and barriers to effective scale-up of an evidence-based multilevel HIV prevention intervention.

Implementation science : IS

Kegeles SM, Rebchook G, Tebbetts S, Arnold E

California AIDS Policy Center Report

Examining California’s Office of AIDS Health Insurance Premium Payment Program: Barriers and facilitators to establishing and maintaining comprehensive insurance coverage for Californians living with HIV/AIDS

Kirby, V, Steward, WT, Arnold, EA

Mentoring Institute conference proceedings

Mentoring Early Career Investigators in HIV/STI Health Disparities Research

Binson,D, Arnold, EA, Woods, WJ, Danley, D, Lightfoot, MA, and Neilands, TB

A qualitative study of provider thoughts on implementing pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) in clinical settings to prevent HIV infection.

PloS one

Arnold EA, Hazelton P, Lane T, Christopoulos KA, Galindo GR, Steward WT, Morin SF

Fairy godmothers and guardian angels: A qualitative study of gay mentorship relationships

Journal of Gay and Lesbian Social Services

Sheran, NT, and Arnold, EA

"We're going to have to cut loose some of our personal beliefs": barriers and opportunities in providing HIV prevention to African American men who have sex with men and women.

AIDS education and prevention : official publication of the International Society for AIDS Education

Saleh LD, Operario D, Smith CD, Arnold E, Kegeles S

The Bruthas Project: evaluation of a community-based HIV prevention intervention for African American men who have sex with men and women.

AIDS education and prevention : official publication of the International Society for AIDS Education

Operario D, Smith CD, Arnold E, Kegeles S

California AIDS Policy Center Report

Examining the Impact of the HIV-related State Budget Cuts: Comparing Alameda, Fresno, and Los Angeles Counties

Arnold EA, Galindo, GG, Gaffney, S, Steward, W, Morin, S