July Faculty and Staff Features

Cecil B. Drain, Ph.D., Dean, School of Allied Health Professions

The sixth edition of “Perianesthesia Nursing: A Critical Care Approach” was renamed “Drain’s Perianesthesia Nursing: A Critical Care Approach,” in honor of Drain, who wrote the first edition in 1978. Long considered the pinnacle of postanesthesia care, “Perianesthesia Nursing’s” fifth edition was awarded Book of the Year by the American Journal of Nursing. Drain wrote seven chapters in the latest edition, authored by Jan Odom-Forren.

Research team to present findings at XIX International AIDS Conference

A team of researchers led by Hongjie Liu, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Community Health in the VCU School of Medicine, will present four study abstracts at the XIX International AIDS conference on July 22-27 in Washington, D.C.  

Hongji’s team includes post-doctoral research fellows Chun Hao, Ph.D., and Chunpeng Zang, Ph.D., and postdoctoral student Jennifer Nield. Nield also was awarded an international scholarship to cover registration fees for her attendance at the conference.

The International AIDS Conference, sponsored every two years by the International AIDS Society, is the premier gathering for researchers in the field of HIV, as well as policy makers, persons living with HIV and other individuals committed to ending the pandemic. Attendance at the event is in the tens of thousands.

The accepted abstracts include:
·    Do parental stigmatizing attitudes towards drug use and HIV infection influence those of their children: a cross-sectional study in Guangxi, China. (Authors: Hongjie Liu, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Community Health in the VCU School of Medicine, and Nana Koram, post-doctoral research fellow at VCU);
·    Dyadic effect of HIV stigma on the quality of life of persons living with HIV and their family caregivers: application of actor-partner interdependence model. (Authors: Hongjie Liu, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Community Health in the VCU School of Medicine; Chunpeng Zang, post-doctoral research fellow at VCU; Yongfeng Xu, Ph.D., senior researcher; Xinqin Lin, Ph.D., senior researcher, Nanning Center for Disease Control and Prevention, China);
·    Associations between significant others’ HIV-related attitudes and behaviors and unprotected anal sex among MSM in China. (Authors: Chun Hao, post-doctoral research fellow at VCU; Joseph Lau, Ph.D., professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong; and Haitao Yang, Ph.D., senior researcher at Jiangshu Center for Disease Control and Prevention); and
·    Measuring Courtesy Stigma among HIV negative family members of PLWHA: Psychometric assessment of the HIV Courtesy Stigma scale. (Authors: Jennifer Nield, postdoctoral student; Hongjie Liu, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Community Health in the VCU School of Medicine; and Levent Dumenci, Ph.D., professor in the VCU Department of Social and Behavioral Health). 

Edmund Acevedo, Ph.D., Professor and Chair of the Health and Human Performance Department, School of Education

Acevedo edited the textbook “The Oxford Handbook of Exercise Psychology,” a comprehensive assembly of definitive contributions on critical issues in exercise psychology from internationally renowned scholars. Published by the Oxford University Press, “Exercise Psychology” covers a variety of critical areas by experts in the field.

Acevedo’s research focuses on the impact of stress and fitness on health, hormone responses to exercise and mental and physiological factors impacting human performance.