October 7, 2024
Laurén Gómez awarded IAS New Investigator Award for research identifying motivators of initiating PrEP in pregnancy
Congratulations to Laurén Gómez, Senior Research Coordinator with Global WACh and current PhD student in UW Epidemiology, for receiving the International AIDS Society’s (IAS) New Investigator Award in PrEP and ARV-based prevention research for the abstract, “Motivations of pregnant women initiating PrEP within antenatal care enrolled in a randomized trial to improve adherence: the mWACh-PrEP study.”
The award recognized six early-career investigators who presented top-rated work at HIVR4P, the 5th HIV Research for Prevention Conference, held from October 6-10, 2024 in Lima, Peru and virtually.
While pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is proven to prevent HIV, research suggests there are many barriers that limit PrEP acceptance and adherence, such as low HIV risk perception, lack of PrEP knowledge, and stigma. Addressing those barriers and promoting facilitators are crucial to optimize PrEP as an effective HIV prevention tool among priority groups, including pregnant women.
Laurén presented data from the mWACh-PrEP study (PI: Pintye), a randomized controlled trial evaluating an interactive text messaging platform to improve adherence among HIV-negative women initiating PrEP during routine antenatal care at five clinics in Kenya. The intervention platform sends PrEP-tailored, theory based, pre-programmed SMS to PrEP users on a weekly basis and allows users to communicate via text message with a remote nurse. The study team analyzed baseline data to describe characteristics and motivations of pregnant women initiating PrEP. The trial is conducted in collaboration with Global WACh, Kenyatta National Hospital, and Jomo Kenyatta University.
Laurén and the mWACh-PrEP team found the most frequent reasons for initiating PrEP were not knowing their partner HIV status, wanting to protect their baby from HIV, feeling at risk for HIV, and believing their partner has other sexual partners. Almost all participants reported high self-efficacy for taking PrEP pills. Leveraging these motivating factors can improve PrEP adherence among mothers at-risk for HIV.