Sean Arayasirikul, PhD

S_Arayasirikul_profile

Associate Professor in Residence of Health, Society, & Behavior

Biography

Dr. Sean Arayasirikul (they/them) is a Medical Sociologist and an Associate Professor In-Residence in the Department of Health, Society, and Behavior (DHSB) at UCI’s Program in Public Health (PPH). Dr. Arayasirikul was a National Institute for Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) T32 Pre-Doctoral Fellow at the Alcohol Research Group, UC Berkeley, an American Sociological Association Minority Fellow (Cohort 38), a Diversity Scholar of the Adolescent Medicine Trials Network for HIV/AIDS Interventions, and an Inter-CFAR Implementation Science Fellow at Johns Hopkins University. Currently, Dr. Arayasirikul is an Associate Director of the University of California Global Health Initiative (UCGHI) Center for Gender and Health Justice (CGHJ), a Board Member of the Society for Implementation Research Collaboration (SIRC), and a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Interdisciplinary Research Leaders Fellow.

Prior to their academic career, Dr. Arayasirikul’s applied public health work began serving adolescents and young adults, young people living with HIV, and sexual and gender minoritized (SGM) communities of color. They were a Public Health Worker providing STI testing and health education in LA County’s STD Program, a mobile HIV Case Manager for newly diagnosed HIV-positive youth across LA County at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA), and a Cross Training Program Coordinator at the Asian Pacific AIDS Intervention team (APAIT). In Washington, D.C., Dr. Arayasirikul oversaw mobile health and HIV testing initiatives at Whitman-Walker Health. At the federal level, Dr. Arayasirikul served as a Scholar at the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) and Health Literacy Fellow at the United States Department of Health & Human Services (US DHHS). They have represented youth communities in HIV community planning processes as a member of the HIV Prevention Planning Committees in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco.

Research Interests

Dr. Arayasirikul’s research interrogates the social etiology and root causes of health among sexual and gender minoritized communities. They believe in the transformative power of community-engaged research, digital technologies, and homegrown interventions. They are focused on the following lines of inquiry:
1) the examination of health disparities and inequity among sexual and gender minoritized (SGM) communities, particularly trans women, BIPOC communities, and those with intersectional identities;
2) the development and implementation science of systems-level, digital health interventions; and
3) liberatory applications of participatory approaches to surveillance, data democratization, and health justice.

For a list of published work on PubMed: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/1xM98YsP9VoAb/bibliography/public/.

UCI students interested in getting involved in this work are encouraged to complete an interest form: https://forms.gle/GF5WhUhJcpLaYJm17.

Current Projects/Studies

University of California HIV/AIDS Research Program (CHRP), H24MR7877, “Geographies if structural racism and intersectional oppression and the House and Ballroom Community” (Role: Principal Investigator)
• Racism is an important determinant of health, especially for those who live at the intersections of multiple stigmatized social positions. However, the extent to which HIV prevention science has studied how racism is structured – or how racism is brought to life – in relation to HIV-STI transmission is just beginning. This project will examine and measure a dimension of structural racism and intersectional oppression that is often ignored – the role of geography, space, and place and how sexual and gender minoritized people of color navigate them.

UCI Office of Inclusive Excellence, EI99196, “No One Asked Us: Using PhotoVoice to Understand Extremism in the Lived Experiences of Sexual and Gender Minoritized Young Adults of Color” (Role: Principal Investigator)
• This project calls for a paradigm shift to better understand and disrupt extremism through intersectionality, health humanities, and public discourse. We will conduct community-grounded research with sexual and gender minoritized young adults of color and use PhotoVoice, a photo elicitation, participatory action research approach, to examine extremism and its impacts on their everyday lives. Through public education and discourse, participants’ photos will spark dialogue, an essential building block to developing respect, finding common ground, and valuing differences in the UCI campus-community.

NIMH, R25MH129290, “Short Trainings on Methods for Recruiting, Sampling, and Counting Hard-to-Reach Populations: The H2R Training Program” (Role: Multiple Principal Investigator)

  • In an effort to support cross-disciplinary exchange of methods and best practices in the social epidemiology of HIV/AIDS in other high priority health equity research areas, Dr. Arayasirikul will mentor trainees and develop and teach courses on community-engaged research and ethnographic methodologies to improve engagement with and participation among populations hardly reached in public health research.

Grant #79107, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Interdisciplinary Research Leaders (IRL) Program, “Not One More: Violence at the Intersection of Structural Racism and Transphobia & the Imperative to Value the Lives of Trans Women of Color” (Role: Multiple Principal Investigator)

  • Not One More is a community-engaged research project. It will develop new measures of intersectional violence and use ecological momentary assessments (EMAs) to measure, characterize, and visualize the magnitude and types of intersectional violence that transgender women of color experience situated in time and place. We will develop a data democratization tool to engage public health and policy stakeholders to increase protections and structural accountability for trans and gender expansive communities.

NIAID, DP2AI164315 “One Ballroom” (Role: Principal Investigator)

  • One Ballroom is a national mixed methods longitudinal population-based study of intersectional HIV stigma, and HIV prevention and care among sexual and gender minorities of color (SGMoC) in the House and Ballroom Community (HBC). This study is the first step in a program of research that will lead to a homegrown, digital health stigma reduction intervention.

R25MH119858, NIMH, “SHINE Strong: Building the pipeline of HIV behavioral scientists with expertise in trans population health” (Role: Multiple Principal Investigator)

  • SHINE Strong (www.weshinestrong.com) is the first training and mentoring program committed to the long-term development of HIV behavioral scientists with expertise in trans population health.

R34MH124626, NIMH, “Breaking systems barriers for trans women of color living with HIV” (Role: Multiple Principal Investigator)

  • In this implementation science study, we will pilot a task-shifting, peer delivered, mHealth support and navigation intervention for trans women living with HIV. We will utilize ecological momentary assessments (EMAs) to develop self-monitoring skills and motivational interviewing to access substance use and mental health treatment to improve HIV care outcomes.

NIAID, R01AI169635, “Brief Longitudinal Incident Sentinel Surveillance (BLISS) for People Who Inject Drugs” (Role: Co-Investigator)

  • To end the HIV epidemic, data collection systems need to be more rapid, representative, and responsive to the most marginalized populations at highest risk. BLISS is a novel epidemiological data collection system for people who inject drugs (PWID) in Alameda and San Francisco counties. These data will inform future interventions to serve PWID communities.

R01TW012397, Fogarty International Center, “Sweekar – Multi level intersectional stigma reduction to increase HIV testing and care engagement among trans women in Nepal” (Role: Co-Investigator)

  • Sweekar (or “acceptance” in Nepali) will collect formative data and pilot a multi-level, HIV serostatus neutral, stigma reduction intervention through HIV self-testing (individual level), HIV treatment home delivery (systems level), and a PhotoVoice-driven contact intervention and social media campaign (community level).

NIMH, R01MH128049 “T’Cher, Take Charge: Increasing PrEP Awareness, Uptake, and Adherence Through Health Care Empowerment and Addressing Social Determinants of Health Among Racially Diverse Trans Women in the Deep South” (Role: Co-Investigator)

  • T’Cher will develop a social media campaign to increase PrEP awareness among trans women and implement a clinic-based, peer, digital navigation intervention that will leverage text messaging, motivational interviewing and ecological momentary assessments (EMAs) to increase health care empowerment and address social determinants of health barriers to PrEP uptake and adherence.

R01AI149627, NIAID, “San Francisco-Rio de Janeiro collaborative research study on HIV prevalence, risk, and biomedical prevention interventions among young men who have sex with men” (Role: Co-Investigator)

  • This study will measure the prevalence and incidence of HIV, STIs, risk behavior, and barriers to biomedical interventions among young MSM aged 18-24 years, pilot a technology-based intervention for rapid ART and PrEP linkage and retention, and identify barriers and solutions to increase the participation of MSM aged 15-17 years in biomedical HIV prevention research and programs.

Education

Dr. Arayasirikul holds a doctorate in sociology from University of California, San Francisco and a bachelor of arts degree in Asian American studies from UC Los Angeles. Their doctoral dissertation was titled, “A Three-Paper Examination of Social Inequity and Health and Illness among Trans Women”.

Honors and Awards

2023-2025, Secretary, The Society for Implementation Research Collaboration

2021-2024, Fellow, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Interdisciplinary Research Leaders

2021-present, Member, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Advisory Group, Implementation Research and Practice

2021, Reviewer and Advisory Group Member, Report: Health and Socioeconomic Well-being of Lesbian, Bisexual and Queer Women in the United States, UCLA Williams Institute

2020-2021, Fellow, Inter-CFAR Implementation Science Fellowship, Johns Hopkins University

2018-2021, Diversity Scholar, Adolescent Medicine Trials Network for HIV/AIDS Interventions

2018-2021, 2022-2023, Awardee, National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities Loan Repayment Program

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