August 19, 2019

Dr. Anjuli Wagner receives NIH K01 research and training grant to improve PrEP delivery for pregnant and postpartum women in Kenya

Congratulations, Dr. Anjuli Wagner (Senior Fellow, Global Health) for receiving a National Institutes of Health (NIH) K01 grant, which supports early career researchers in gaining advanced research training and experience.  Dr. Wagner’s new study, “Testing implementation strategies to improve delivery of PrEP for pregnant and postpartum women in Kenya,” aims to optimize the scaled-up delivery of PrEP—the daily oral pill to prevent HIV—in Kenya, where PrEP is systemically delivered in some regions during pregnancy.  The grant allows Dr. Wagner an opportunity to complete her career development training in implementation science and health economics with strong mentorship and collaborations, and apply it within meaningful research to prevent maternal HIV acquisition in Kenya.

Dr. Wagner’s mentorship team includes Global Health faculty members, Drs. Grace John-Stewart (Professor), Bryan Weiner (Professor), Ruanne Barnabas (Associate Professor), Jared Baeten (Professor), Kenneth Sherr (Professor), John Kinuthia (Affiliate Associate Professor; Head of Research and Programs, Kenyatta National Hospital), and from the Kenyan Ministry of Health, Dr. Peter Cherutich (Senior Deputy Director of Medical Services).

The project leverages the experiences and findings from two Global WACh projects, PrEP Implementation for Mothers in Antenatal Care (PrIMA) and PrEP Implementation for Young Women and Adolescents (PrIYA), led by Drs. John-Stewart and Baeten, that are the first and largest projects worldwide to deliver PrEP during pregnancy within antenatal clinics in Kenya.  Using the experiences of healthcare workers and implementation science designs and strategies, Dr. Wagner’s research aims to identify barriers to offering PrEP during routine pregnancy visits, test different approaches to modify and improve PrEP delivery, and analyze the budget impacts of each approach. The research will also help Dr. Wagner collect critical data about policymaker decision-making processes.

From her research and training grant, Dr. Wagner hopes to submit a NIH R01 cluster-randomized trial to test a package of implementation strategies to improve successful delivery of PrEP during antenatal care visits.  We look forward to sharing results in the coming years!