Dr. Christian Grov, Professor of Community Health and Social Sciences, has dedicated his career to the sexual well-being of underserved communities. A prolific scholar, he has devoted the bulk of his research to HIV prevention, observing the behavior of at-risk populations to identify opportunities for public health interventions.
The son of immigrants from the Bahamas and Norway, Grov came to New York City from Florida in 2003 to begin his doctoral studies in public health at the CUNY Graduate Center. On the way, he obtained three master’s degrees, including a MPH from CUNY’s Hunter College.
After completing his doctoral studies, Grov spent a year at the National Development and Research Institutes where, as a postdoctoral fellow, he conducted behavioral science training in drug abuse research across high-risk and underserved populations. He came to CUNY in 2008 as an Assistant Professor of Health and Nutrition Sciences at Brooklyn College and joined the faculty at CUNY SPH in 2016 when the school was centralized.
A Commitment to LGBT Health
Grov’s research has focused primarily on the health and well-being of LGBT individuals. Over the course of his academic career, he has examined trends in gay culture, analyzing behavioral and environmental factors that put gay and bisexual men at risk for contracting and spreading HIV, such as sexual compulsivity, depression, childhood sexual abuse, intimate partner violence, and drug use.
In a 2011 study, Grov and his colleagues noted a disturbing trend: gay and bisexual men accounted for nearly two-thirds of new HIV diagnoses nationwide and were among the only populations to see increased incidence in recent years, with men of color being the hardest hit among them by the ongoing epidemic. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that, if the trend continued, one in six gay and bisexual men would be diagnosed with HIV in their lifetimes, including one in two black men and one in four Latino men. Grov wanted to know why this population was being left behind by HIV prevention efforts on such a large scale.
“In spite of all the tools we have to prevent HIV transmission, too many vulnerable individuals keep falling through the HIV prevention safety net, and we just don’t know why,” Grov says.
Together 5,000
In late 2016, Grov and his colleagues from the ISPH, the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, University of Massachusetts Boston, Rutgers University, and the Foundation for AIDS Research applied for funding from the National Institutes for Health (NIH) to launch a nationwide HIV prevention study of men at risk of infection. Last July, NIH awarded Grov and his team $2.4 million to conduct a two-year study of 5,000 HIV-negative gay and bisexual men ages 16 to 49, all of whom participate by completing at-home online surveys as well as at-home self-administered HIV testing.
“We are already starting to identify gaps in the HIV prevention safety net,” Grov says. “Why haven’t these young men been tested before? Why are they finding out their status from a research study? One of the problems we have already identified so far seem to be a lack of resources. Although enrollment is ongoing, more than a quarter of those in the study don’t have health insurance, half don’t have a primary care provider, and nearly a third of those with a provider haven’t told them they have sex with men.”
One of the study’s main goals is to identify missed HIV prevention opportunities—to identify the holes in the HIV prevention safety net and determine ways to fill them.
“Systematically characterizing and addressing missed HIV prevention opportunities is a priority implementation issue, and critical for ending HIV epidemics for every jurisdiction across the US,” says Dr. Denis Nash, Executive Director of ISPH and a co-investigator on the study.
As part of the study, participants are surveyed about their awareness of or experience with pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) a pill that, when taken consistently, has been shown to reduce the risk of HIV infection in the event of an exposure to near zero. This data could help researchers identify opportunities to better target promotion of the prevention method to at-risk populations, address concerns subjects may have about taking the drug, and identify the reasons why subjects never start taking or stop taking the drug.
In July of 2019, the team will report back their findings to the NIH and if enrollment milestones are met, the grant will be renewed for another three years.
“If renewed, that means we will be able to follow participants for a total of four years and generate a wealth of important data on how these men’s lives have changed,” Grov says.
Supporting student research
Grov brings his research perspectives to the SPH classroom, providing students with indispensable experience through participation in his many studies.
Alexa D’Angelo, a student in the MPH program, has been working closely with Grov on together 5,000 and PrEP & Me, which assesses PrEP adherence in gay and bisexual men in New York City.
“Dr. Grov is a mentor to me in navigating my graduate studies,” D’Angelo says. “He’s offered a plethora of knowledge that has eased the anxiety of navigating graduate school and informed my academic decisions. I’ve learned so much about academia, HIV research, and the field of public health by familiarizing myself with his work and observing his impressive career.”
Javier Lopez-Rios, a doctoral candidate at CUNY SPH, has worked with Grov on the analysis of data from several HIV prevention studies.
“He has always encouraged me to learn and implement new methods of data collection and data analysis that I have not had much exposure to,” Lopez-Rios says. “Being trained almost exclusively in qualitative methods has encouraged me to look into different quantitative methods courses (i.e. GIS and Survey methods in Social Sciences). He’s been extremely supportive in making sure I meet my career goals and get exposure to conferences and manuscripts.”
Grov and his colleagues continue to churn out study after study, producing data that will hopefully lead to reduced incidences of HIV infection among LGBT individuals. Nash says Grov has his work cut out for him.
“Christian’s focus is squarely in one of the most challenging areas of implementation science in that he is focused on expanding the reach of proven and very powerful HIV prevention tools to vulnerable and marginalized populations who may not learn about them until it is too late,” Nash says. “This is cutting edge work that will greatly inform efforts to end the spread of HIV in the US.”
