BWH Division of Women's Health
Department of Medicine
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Ingrid Katz, MD, MHS is the PEPFAR Director for Behavioral Sciences in the Bureau for Global Health Security and Diplomacy in the U.S. Department of State. She has also been appointed Country Chair for Cameroon at PEPFAR.
She is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Associate Physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and the former Associate Faculty Director at the Harvard Global Health Institute. Dr. Katz has spent the past 15 years focused on developing sustainable socio-behavioral interventions aimed at improving care for the most underserved in low-resourced settings, primarily in South Africa. Her expertise in mixed-methods research combines qualitative and quantitative techniques to understand barriers to care in hard-to-reach populations. She received the A. Clifford Barger Excellence in Mentoring Award in 2019, given to faculty at Harvard Medical School and its affiliated hospitals annually for excellence in mentoring. She was also selected as the inaugural recipient of the Dean’s Award for an Emerging Leader in Women’s Careers in 2021, by the Joint Committee on the Status of Women, in recognition of a faculty member who is making an impact to advance women’s careers at Harvard Medical School and its affiliated hospitals.
Brigham & Women’s Hospital
Associate Physician, Division of Women’s Health; Associate Physician, Division of Infectious Diseases; Associate Physician, Division of General Internal Medicine; Associate Physician, Division of Medical Communications; Associate Faculty, Ariadne Labs, BWH & HSPH
Harvard Medical School
Associate Professor of Medicine
Other Appointments
Associate Faculty Director, Harvard Global Health Institute, Harvard University; Research Scientist, Center for Global Health, MGH; Director for Behavioral Sciences and Country Chair, Cameroon; PEPFAR, Global Health Security and Diplomacy
In her current work in South Africa, Dr. Katz is focused on a socio-behavioral randomized controlled trial to test a peer-based intervention to assist individuals living with HIV in South Africa initiate treatment. The goal is to develop and perform a pilot randomized controlled trial of Standing Tall – a multi-level, community-based test and treat intervention for South African youth. Informed by Social Action Theory, Standing Tall uses a cognitive behavioral approach and aims to ensure that young people living newly diagnosed with HIV in South Africa (ages 18-24) initiate treatment in a timely manner, and achieve durable viral load suppression, retention in care, and sexual risk-reduction behavior. Standing Tall combines psycho-educational support, provided by lay counselors, peer support, and treatment provision in the context of a youth-focused Treatment Club across five high HIV-prevalence urban communities in the Western Cape Province. Dr. Katz is also consulting on a project in Uganda. Using a stepped-wedge design, the aim is to determine the impact of treatment as prevention (TasP) and PrEP on sero-discordant couples when both members of the couple are receiving antiretroviral treatment, Dr. Katz is assisting with content expertise on treatment initiation. Dr. Katz has recently expanded her focus to consider how migration impacts care for people living with HIV.
At the local level, Dr. Katz has taken an existing HPV prevention program and systematically adapting new versions for use in community clinical partnerships serving vulnerable populations. It also addresses cancer control needs of the DF/HCC catchment area (greater Boston). In addition, the project will provide pilot data for a hybrid effectiveness-implementation trial that fits current research objectives and funding streams of the NIH/NCI and PCORI.
Dr. Katz has co-led a workshop, “South-to-South Collaboration for Vaccines and Therapeutics Innovation” at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study in 2020 and 2021. The workshop brought together leaders in R&D from across South Asia and Latin America to formulate strategies for exploring new partnerships to develop cost-effective vaccines and therapeutics for low-resource nations.
Funding
Karan A, Katz I. There is no stopping covid-19 without stopping racism. BMJ. 2020;369:m2244. PMID: 32518097
Kavanagh MM, Katz IT, Holmes CB. Reckoning with mortality: global health, HIV, and the politics of data. Lancet. 2020;396(10246):288-290. Review. PMID: 32628903
Katz IT, Weintraub R, Bekker LG, Brandt AM. From Vaccine Nationalism to Vaccine Equity – Finding a Path Forward. N Engl J Med. 2021. Apr 8;384(14):1281-1283. PMID: 33830709
Katz IT, Bogart LM, Fitzmaurice GM, Staggs VS, Gwadz MV, Bassett IV, Cross A, Courtney I, Tsolekile L, Panda R, Steck S, Bangsberg DR, Orrell C, Goggin, K. The Treatment Ambassador Program: A Highly Acceptable and Feasible Community-Based Peer Intervention for South Africans Living with HIV who Delay or Discontinue Antiretroviral Therapy. AIDS Behav. 2021 Apr;25(4):1129-1143. [Online ahead of print.] PMID: 33125587.
Katz IT, Musinguzi N, Bell K, Cross, A, Bwana MB, Amayire G, Asiimwe S, Orrell C, Bangsberg DR, Haberer, JE. The Impact of Disease Stage on Early Gaps in ART in the “Treatment for All” Era — A Multisite Cohort Study. J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr. 2021 Apr 15;86(5):562-567. [Online ahead of print.] PMID: 33351529
Nardell MF, Yeonsoo SL, Rousseau E, Julies R, Klaas P, Vundhla P, Butler L, Bassett IV, Mellins CA, Bekker LG, Katz IT. “You are Not Alone”: A Qualitative Study to Explore Barriers to ART Initiation and Implications for a Proposed Community-Based Youth Treatment Club Among Young Adults Newly Diagnosed with HIV in South Africa. AIDS Care. 2020 Dec 21:1-10. [Online ahead of print.] PMID: 33345593
Katz IT, Bogart LM, Dietrich JJ, Leslie HH, Iyer HS, Leone D, Magidson JF, Earnshaw VA, Courtney I, Tshabalala G, Fitzmaurice GM, Orrell C, Gray G, Bangsberg DR. Understanding the role of resilience resources, antiretroviral therapy initiation, and HIV-1 RNA suppression among people living with HIV in South Africa: a prospective cohort study. AIDS. 2019 Jun 1;33 Suppl 1:S71-S79. PMID:31397725. PMCID:PMC6712569.
Katz IT, Ehrenkranz P, El-Sadr W. The Global HIV Epidemic: What Will It Take to Get to the Finish Line? JAMA. 2018 03 20; 319(11):1094-1095. PMCID: PMC29509836.
Katz IT, Kaplan R, Fitzmaurice G, Leone D, Bangsberg DR, Bekker LG, Orrell C. Treatment guidelines and early loss from care for people living with HIV in Cape Town, South Africa: A retrospective cohort study. PLoS Med. 2017 Nov; 14(11):e1002434. PMCID: PMC29136014.
Katz IT, Maughan-Brown, B. Improved life expectancy among people living with HIV – who is left behind? Lancet HIV. 2017 Aug;4(8):e324-e326. PMCID: PMC28501496.
Katz IT, Bangsberg DR. Cascade of Refusal-What Does It Mean for the Future of Treatment as Prevention in Sub-Saharan Africa? Curr HIV/AIDS Rep. 2016 Apr;13(2):125-30. PMCID: PMC26894487.
Katz IT, Siedner MJ. Does early antiretroviral therapy for HIV Infection in sub-Saharan Africa decrease mortality? Lancet HIV. 2015 Sep;2(9):e354-5. PMCID: PMC4634669.
Katz IT, Dietrich J, Tshabalala G, Essien T, Rough K, Wright AA, Bangsberg DR, Gray G, Ware NC. Understanding treatment refusal among adults presenting for HIV-testing in Soweto, South Africa: A Qualitative Study. AIDS Behav. 2015, Apr;19(4):704-714. PMCID: PMC4393756.
Katz IT, Tsai AC. Psychological therapy to improve HIV care and reduce stigma. Lancet HIV. 2015;2(5):e172-3. PMCID: PMC4634562.
Katz IT, Bogart LM, Cloete C, Crankshaw TL, Giddy J, Govender T, Gaynes M, Leone D, Losina E, Bassett IV. Understanding HIV-infected patients’ experiences with PEPFAR-associated transitions at a Centre of Excellence in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa: a qualitative study. AIDS Care. 2015;27(10):1298-303. PMCID: PMC4548805.
Katz IT, Bassett IV, Wright AA. PEPFAR in transition–implications for HIV care in South Africa. N Engl J Med. 2013 Oct 10;369(15):1385-7. PMCID: PMC3897549.
Research Program of the Division of Women’s Health
Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
75 Francis Street, Boston MA 02115
