About Perry Halkitis

For the last decade, my work has centered on improving the human condition. By focusing my research on issues of health, human behavior, and development, with a specific application to the domains of HIV/AIDS and drug abuse, I have been able to address some of most important social and public health issues of our time. These areas of inquiry are extremely important, because while primarily rooted in the principles of psychology, they also cross and incorporate the domains of education and health. As such, I have developed a program of study at my research center, the Center for health, Identity, Behavior & Prevention Studies (CHIBPS) guided by four main goals:

1. To broaden our understanding of the epidemics of HIV/AIDS and drug abuse by conducting research which creates and builds upon theories and recognizes and disentangles the complex interactions that occur between psychological, sociological, biomedical, and behavioral factors.
2. To develop programs and interventions based on these theories and our own data which can be applied in real-life settings in order to (i) treat and improve the lives of individuals living with HIV/AIDS and/or drug abuse in a manner which is “true” to realities of individuals, and (ii) prevent the further spread of HIV/AIDS and drug abuse.
3. To educate, inform, and involve members of the larger society regarding the issues of HIV/AIDS and drug abuse so to both function as a preventive mechanism, but also to develop a tolerance and understanding of the people living with these conditions.
4. To broaden the field of human development by studying, expanding, and implementing biopsychosocial paradigms which examine the interconnectedness between health/physicality and the cognitive, social, and emotional domains.

To achieve these goals, my research had traditionally focused on the following four areas of study:

1. HIV prevention and education;
2. treatment access and medication adherence among HIV infected individuals;
3. developmental and contextual understandings of drug use and addiction; and
4. conceptions of identity and human development.

Certainly not mutually exclusive, the four areas of inquiry inform each other. In the last several years because the work at our research center has become more developmentally rooted and interconnected with elements of human development, mental health counseling, and mind-body theories, we have renamed our site the Center for Health, Identity, Behavior, & Prevention Studies (CHIBPS, formerly CHEST) to more fully capture the work that we do. This evolution has been complemented by research endeavors that extend our work further into communities of color, among women and children, into the international arena, and which are rooted and directed by the biopsychosocial model—a model which considers the interplay between matters of health and behavior in relation to psychological and sociological states contextualized in developmental frames. In particular, three additional areas of work/research studies have evolved in light of this new direction which do not replace, but rather expand the framework for the work that I have been conducting for over a decade:

1. assessments of health service provision for women;
2. applications and examinations of mind-body theory and
3. considerations of the biophysical domain in relation to human development.

In addition, in my current capacity as Associate Dean for Research & Doctoral Studies at the Steinhardt School, my goal is to nurture, grow, and publicize the research agenda of the school for faculty and students.

Research Interests

• biopsychosocial aspects of HIV/AIDS
• drug addiction
• LGBT identity
• health and human development
• social and behavioral determinants of health
• intervention research
• evaluation research
• survey research
• mixed methods
  
• applied statistics
• psychometrics/classical and modern test theories
• quantitative methods in psychology, health, & education
• advanced quantitative methods