Nicole Dear

Nicole Dear
  • Ph.D.
  • Geography, Environment, and Spatial Sciences
  • Geography Building
  • 673 Auditorium Road
  • East Lansing, MI 48824

AREAS OF INTEREST

Medical/Health Geography

RESEARCH SYNOPSIS

While the clustering of HIV with other coinfections such as tuberculosis is well understood, patterns of noninfectious comorbidity among PLWH are not well studied, particularly across Africa and in other low-resource settings. Evidence suggests that comorbidities in PLWH are nonrandom, possibly reflecting shared risk factors. Furthermore, the risk for developing comorbidities is higher among PLWH and at younger ages. PLWH have unique and complex needs and may require additional resources and more specific care. This is particularly pertinent in low-resource settings where healthcare systems are often already strained.

Using tools from the discipline of geography, my goal as a doctoral student is to leverage individual-level sociobehavioral and clinical data in combination with coarser contextual data to examine how the built and physical environments impact risk for comorbidities, health care access, and ultimately health outcomes among PLWH.