July 15, 2024 | Institute for Collaboration on Health, Intervention, and Policy
Raymond Moody, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences, is working on a study that explores the link between drug use, stigma, and HIV risk among Hispanic/Latino sexual minority men
In the United States, Hispanic/Latino sexual minority men (HLSMM) are disproportionately burdened by methamphetamine use and HIV.
Despite accounting for nearly 24% of new HIV diagnoses in the U.S., HLSMM are an understudied population in HIV prevention research. Additionally, nearly one in three new HIV infections occur among sexual and gender minorities who use methamphetamine.
Methamphetamine use has been identified as a significant driver of HIV transmission among sexual minority men, but little is known about how drug use stigma and sexual minority stigma coalesce to affect methamphetamine use and HIV risk among HLSMM.
Raymond Moody, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences (HDFS) in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, secured a five-year, $950,000 K01 Mentored Career Development Award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to study how stigma influences drug use and HIV vulnerability among HLSMM.
Specifically, Moody will look at HLSMM who use methamphetamine to identify how structural and social stigma is internalized and how multiple intersecting forms of stigma impact HIV risk to work toward ending the HIV epidemic among HLSMM.
“I’ve been working with individuals who use drugs for a long time, and I’ve witnessed the negative impacts that stigma has on the quality of support, access to resources, and quality of life that individuals have,” says Moody.
This project addresses a critical gap in HIV prevention research among HLSMM and could step up the U.S.’ progress in eradicating HIV in this population.
As a clinical psychologist, Moody has studied how internalized stigma, or negative beliefs about one’s own sexuality or drug-using status, can elevate risky sexual and drug-related behaviors. Stigma can also serve as a barrier to support, treatment, and prevention services.
By tracking stigma to its source, Moody hopes to develop an intervention that helps individuals cope with stigma while also shaping community-level and policy interventions.
“I’ve been working with individuals who use drugs for a long time, and I’ve witnessed the negative impacts that stigma has on the quality of support, access to resources, and quality of life that individuals have,” says Moody.
Moody, who is also a principal investigator at InCHIP, joined UConn in August 2023 after completing his postdoctoral fellowship in the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)-funded T32 Substance Abuse Epidemiology Training Program at Columbia University.
At UConn, Moody serves as the faculty advisor to the Council on Family Relations. He also serves on the editorial board of the Society of Behavioral Medicine’s Annals of Behavior Medicine and Translational Behavioral Medicine journals.
Moody is currently a fellow in NIDA’s Enhanced Interdisciplinary Research Training Institute on Hispanic Substance Abuse. He is also a faculty researcher at the Sexuality, Health, and Intersectional Experiences (SHINE) Lab, co-directed by HDFS Associate Professor Ryan Watson and HDFS Professor Lisa Eaton.
He earned his doctorate in clinical psychology from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. His dissertation investigated the connecting roles of emotion regulation, executive attention, and attentional bias in influencing HIV transmission risk behavior among sexual minority men. Findings from Moody’s dissertation were used to develop interventions aimed at reducing the burden of HIV among gay and bisexual men and other men who have sex with men.