Andrew Barnett, PhD
Biography
Dr. Barnett’s research focuses on reducing health disparities among sexual and gender minority (SGM) adolescent and young adult populations, and he is particularly interested in behavioral factors associated with HIV risk among young men who have sex with men (YMSM). He is currently mentored by Dr. Larry Brown. Prior to graduate school, he served as the executive director for SMYAL, a community-based organization for SGM youth in Washington, DC. This experience motivated him to pursue research and clinical training so that he could contribute to developing and implementing evidence-based interventions for this population. In the past year, he has been an author on seven publications (two as first author), and he has four manuscripts under review or provisionally accepted (two as first author). Recent first-authored publications include an article on the associations of family-related factors and sexual health outcomes for Black YMSM in Mississippi (published in AIDS and Behavior), and a qualitative study of barriers and facilitators to implementing pre-exposure prophylaxis in federally qualified health centers in Mississippi (published in AIDS Education and Prevention). In terms of conference presentations, Dr. Barnett recently presented a paper at the Society for Prevention Research 2023 annual meeting on the associations of parental behaviors in the domains of condom access facilitation, HIV testing facilitation, and condom use instruction with YMSM’s sexual health outcomes. He also gave an oral presentation on reciprocal relationships between beliefs about condoms and condomless anal sex among YMSM prescribed PrEP at the HIV & Pediatrics meeting in July 2022. He recently, submitted an NIH K23 application in September 2023 that proposes to use implementation science methods to deliver and evaluate a retention in care intervention for YMSM starting PrEP. In addition, he applied for and received an NIH Loan Repayment Program grant (area: clinical research), with a two-year award period that began July 1, 2022.