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About
©2024 BJHA
Researcher: Viva Voong
Editor: Megan Vu
Designer: Natalie Ho
Dr. Cu-Uvin is a Professor of OB-GYN (Obstetrics-Gynecology) and Medicine at the Warren Alpert School of Medicine and serves as Professor of Health Services, Policy and Practice at Brown University’s School of Public Health. Passionate about advocating for her female patients, Dr. Cu-Uvin led substantial initiatives to alleviate growing inequities in global health. In 2006, Dr. Cu-Uvin accepted a fellowship position with Dr. Charles Carpenter at the first HIV Menopause clinic for women at the Miriam Hospital, where her research focused on exploring the interactions between menopause and HIV. However, Dr. Cu-Uvin’s journey wasn’t without its challenges. At the time, Dr. Cu-Uvin’s mentors told her that this fellowship was the “death mill” of her career because all the women who contracted HIV died in their twenties before they could get pregnant. Nevertheless, Dr. Cu-Uvin persevered, helping the clinic serve over 280 women.
As HIV and AIDS became a global crisis, Dr. Cu-Uvin’s work became more significant on the international level. In 2009, Dr. Cu-Uvin started the Global Health Initiative at Brown University and served as its director. In a video series, “Brown Global Voices,” Dr. Cu-Uvin talked about the purpose of the Global Health Initiative. “Our approach to global health is multi-disciplinary. It’s not more about diseases, but really about inequities that put populations or people at risk for global health problems.” She worked with other faculty to create an international AIDS training program for countries that were most affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, including Ghana, Kenya, India, Indonesia, and the Philippines. This program helped to establish a skilled support system of healthcare providers who could treat both men and women with HIV and AIDS.
Today, HIV continues to affect women of reproductive age, especially in low and middle income countries. Two studies done fourteen years apart (in 2007 and 2021) found that women with HIV have about six times the risk of developing cervical cancer compared to women who don’t have HIV.3 Yet many countries face a shortage of healthcare services to combat the increased risk of cervical cancer in women with HIV. The pressing need for screenings, preventative care, and treatment for women in Bangladesh inspired Dr.Cu-Uvin to develop a program to provide just that. Dr. Cu-Uvin’s program trained administrators, nurses, doctors and midwives and established three district hospitals, as well as multiple mobile clinics. They have screened over 73,000 women and diagnosed 25 cases of cervical cancer. The program’s impact was extraordinary – 19 of the women treated are alive today because of the program (the remaining six declined treatment).
During her time working with the program, Dr.Cu-Uvin visited Bangladesh three times a year for two weeks at a time. She recalled that her favorite memories from her work there involved treating women in the mobile clinics. “It’s amazing, sometimes we would have one hundred women in one day. We never stopped until we finished seeing all the women.” Most importantly, she says that this program, and all the global health initiatives at Brown are a “bilateral exchange of information.” The ratio of patients to doctors is very high in low or middle income countries compared to America, and healthcare resources are much more scarce. Because clinicians who work in these countries don’t have access to many of the expensive tests that are used in America, it is critical that they adapt by learning to listen to patients carefully. Many Brown faculty members who participated in these programs learned to hone their clinical skills in order to reduce waste and increase efficiency.
Dr. Cu-Uvin continues to be a leader in the struggle to protect women’s health globally. She is currently the Director of the Providence/Boston Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) and the Principal Investigator of a D43 HIV and Cervical CA Training Grant with MOI University in Kenya, which focuses on the pathogenesis, screening, and treatment of HIV-related cervical cancer among women living with HIV. At the time of writing this article, Dr.Cu-Uvin was preparing for a trip to the Philippines to start a new program to establish research projects and train clinicians to treat men and women affected by HIV and AIDS. She is passionate about continuing to establish global health initiatives so that we can facilitate understanding and learn from each other, especially about clinically pertinent issues like HIV, AIDS and cervical cancer. Dr. Cu-Uvin’s unwavering commitment and leadership has led to great progress in women’s healthcare on an international scale and has improved access to HIV and AIDS treatment for thousands of women.
2.Bosh, K. A., Hall, H. I., Eastham, L., Daskalakis, D. C., & Mermin, J. H. (2021). Estimated annual number of HIV infections ─ United States, 1981–2019. MMWR. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 70(22), 801–806. https://doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm7022a1
3.Castle PE, Einstein MH, Sahasrabuddhe VV. Cervical cancer prevention and control in women living with human immunodeficiency virus. CA Cancer J Clin. 2021 Nov;71(6):505-526. doi: 10.3322/caac.21696. Epub 2021 Sep 9. PMID: 34499351; PMCID: PMC10054840.