Yale Awards Funding to Prof. Jacobson López for Pilot Project at its Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS
Dr. Daniel Jacobson López, assistant professor at Boston University School of Social Work (BUSSW), received a pilot award from Yale University’s Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS (CIRA) to conduct new research that will improve medical care for Black men who have experienced sexual assault.
The project is focused on identifying the medical concerns of Black men who have sex with men (MSM) and determining how the multiple stigmas they face (racial, anti-gay, HIV-related, and identity as a male sexual assault survivor) affect help-seeking behaviors for post-assault HIV/STI care.
The project is funded by the National Institute of Mental Health through CIRA’s Pilot Project in HIV Research Program.
Prof. Jacobson López hopes the project will make the post-assault care easier and reduce the traumatic impact for Black MSM sexual assault survivors who are “often ignored in research and practice.”
“Far too often gay men are stigmatized,” Jacobson López says. “This study will help to understand how anti-Black racism, homophobia, and other biases affect HIV care for men who have experienced sexual trauma [and] whether medical care providers are asking men about past experiences of sexual assault.”
Prof. Jacobson López, who served as a 2022 and 2023 REIDS fellow at CIRA, is currently a visiting research scientist at Yale University’s School of Medicine and School of Public Health. He will receive project support from the CIRA Development Core and work in consultation with his Yale mentor LaRon Nelson, associate dean at Yale University School of Nursing and director of CIRA’s Justice, Community Capacity, and Equity Core.
Prof. Jacobson López is an assistant professor and deputy Title IX coordinator at BUSSW.