Dr. Angela Aidala is a Senior Research Scientist at the Department of Sociomedical Sciences. Dr. Aidala has directed a number of studies addressing housing, homelessness, and housing service issues. She directs the HUD funded Multiple Diagnoses Initiative (MDI), working with housing providers to better understand the reciprocal relationship between housing and health care among persons living with HIV/AIDS who also struggle with mental illness and/or chronic substance abuse problems. She is Co-PI of the Community Health Advisory & Information Network (CHAIN) Project, an ongoing study of persons living with HIV in New York City done in collaboration with the HIV Planning Council and the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Dr. Aidala is currently a Senior Investigator on the HUD-CDC Housing and Health Study which is a collaboration between federal and local government agencies, community based service providers, and university researchers, to investigate the impact of providing housing on the health and mental health of formerly homeless persons living with HIV/AIDS and their risks of transmitting HIV. She has been a consultant to the Treatment Adherence, Health Outcomes & Cost Study, a federal collaborative project of SAMHSA, HRSA, and NIH, to determine if an integrated service approach improves treatment adherence and better outcomes for multiply diagnosed individuals with HIV. Dr. Aidala has written extensively on the relationship of housing to health, including forthcoming articles examining the relationship of housing status and HIV risk behaviors, and on developing service-enriched housing for multiply diagnosed people with HIV/AIDS.

Areas of expertise

housing and neighborhood effects on health; methodologies for reaching hidden populations; ethnographic and qualitative methods

Recent publications

Aidala AA, Lee G, Abramson DM, Messeri P, Siegler A. (2007) Housing need, housing assistance, and connection to HIV medical care. AIDS Behav (6 Suppl):101-15. Epub 2007 Sep 3.

Aidala AA, Sumartojo E. (2007) Why housing? Introduction to the Special Issue on Housing and HIV/AIDS. AIDS Behav (6 Suppl):1-6. Epub 2007 Aug 21.

Holtgrave DR, Briddell K, Little E, Bendixen AV, Hooper M, Kidder DP, Wolitski RJ, Harre D, Royal S, Aidala A. (2007) Cost and threshold analysis of housing as an HIV prevention intervention. AIDS Behav (6 Suppl):162-6. Epub 2007 Jul 7.

Kidder DP, Wolitski RJ, Royal S, Aidala A, Courtenay-Quirk C, Holtgrave DR, Harre D, Sumartojo E, Stall R. (2007) Housing and Health Study Team.. Access to housing as a structural intervention for homeless and unstably housed people living with HIV: Rationale, methods, and implementation of the Housing and Health study. AIDS Behav (6 Suppl):149-61. Epub 2007 Jun 2.