Giving Stories

As always, I am very thankful for this opportunity to pursue my PhD at the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, and I’m immensely grateful to The Courage Fund for allowing me to do so. The past year has been very rewarding in my PhD journey, and I think a very important one that will put me in good standing as a sociobehavioural scientist and researcher in Singapore.

In 2018, I have published a total of 4 manuscripts (3 of them as the first author) in peer-reviewed journals, with 5 more currently under review (3 of them as the first author). Some of these papers will form part of my PhD thesis on the sociocultural determinants of HIV/STI testing among men who have sex with men (MSM) in Singapore, while others have focused on pertinent issues in HIV prevention such as the implementation and roll-out of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis in Singapore, and on sexualised substance use among MSM.

I have also made several poster presentations at the 22nd International AIDS Conference (2018), the STI 2018 pre-conference in Amsterdam (4 poster presentations), and at the Singapore Health and Biomedical Congress 2018 (2 poster presentations; photo attached). In terms of oral presentations, I was privileged to be invited as faculty at the Singapore Health and Biomedical Congress 2018 to speak at the Sexual Health Symposium on Sociobehavioural Approaches to HIV/STI, and as an invited speaker at several scientific and policy meetings across the year, such as the quarterly Sexual Health Workgroup Meetings, Society of Behavioural Health Singapore’s Scientific Meeting, NCID HIV Grand Round, and at the Institute of Infectious Diseases and Epidemiology Research Round. In the next few months, I will be serving as a discussant at a public lecture by Dr Judith Auerbach, a prominent sociologist in the field of HIV science, and will be a panelist at the 11th Singapore AIDS Conference.

I was a founding member, and have been appointed as the Pro-Tem Treasurer of the Society of Behavioural Health, Singapore and was part of the organising committee for its inaugural Scientific Meeting held on 29 September 2018. Currently, I am the SSHSPH graduate research student representative for the 2nd term. I have also volunteered as an Abstract Mentor for the 10th International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Science that will be held in Mexico City in 2019, and I’m excited to celebrate a new milestone in my professional research career by serving as a manuscript reviewer (International Journal of Drug Policy; 2017 Impact Factor 4.244).
I have successfully been awarded the SSHSPH Infectious Diseases Programme Research Grant as a principal investigator with a total funding of S$30,000.00 for a study entitled Effectiveness of an online video intervention to address internalised homophobia and improve sexual health outcomes among gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men: a pragmatic, randomised controlled trial (RCT). This RCT involves a collaboration with Action for AIDS to evaluate the efficacy of mHealth initiatives on primary and secondary HIV prevention strategies among MSM in Singapore. I have also received a S$50,000.00 funding from NUHS SPHERiC as a co-investigator for a project entitled Predictors of syndemic risks among a young gay and bisexual male cohort: a prospective cohort study. This is a prospective cohort study that attempts to identify sociocultural determinants of HIV/STI risk among MSM in Singapore. These studies will contribute to my PhD thesis as well.