Nathan Hansen, Ph.D.

• Professor of Public Health and Head of the Department of Health Promotion and Behavior, University of Georgia

Biography:

Nathan Hansen, Ph.D., former Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine, former Director of HIV Prevention and Mental Health Research at The Consultation Center, and former Director of CIRA's Development Core, recently moved to the University of Georgia where he is Associate Professor of Public Health and Head of the Department of Health Promotion and Behavior.

Dr. Hansen's research focuses on the development of mental health interventions to prevent HIV infection and improve the lives of people living with the virus. In particular, Dr. Hansen's initiatives seek to provide support to survivors of trauma in order to reduce high-risk behaviors and increase adherence to care.  His research portfolio includes projects in New Haven, New York City, Liberia, Sierra Leone, India, and Russia. 

Dr. Hansen has considerable experience in intervention development having served as an investigator on several NIH-funded RCTs of interventions to enhance the mental health and coping of people living with HIV, as well as additional studies on the impact of trauma, particularly interpersonal violence, on the mental health and risk behavior of people living with HIV. These include an RCT for a group psychotherapy intervention for people living with HIV who were sexually abused as children or adolescents, a study examining the impact of physical and sexual abuse on HIV risk among adults with severe mental illness, and developing a group HIV prevention intervention for women who had experienced sexual assault or intimate partner violence in South Africa.

Additionally, Dr. Hansen has conducted research examining the link between mental illness and substance use among people living with HIV. He has extensive research and clinical experience, both domestically and internationally, in HIV and substance abuse prevention, the treatment of trauma and substance abuse/dependence, intervention development, and measure development.

CIRA Affiliated Projects:

• Efficacy Trial of a Brief Health Enhancement Intervention for Newly Diagnosed Men

• Facilitators and Barriers to Addressing Intimate Partner Violence in CT HIV/AIDS Services Agencies

• Identifying Adolescents at Risk for Transitioning into Injection Drug Use in Russian Cities: Preliminary Research

• Intervention to Reduce Acute Stress and HIV Risk in Newly HIV Diagnosed Men

• Reducing Violence and HIV Risk among War-Exposed Liberian Youth