
- Phone: (585) 275-5844
- Office: HWH 2W130
- Email: Gamji Rabiu Abu-Ba'are
Gamji Rabiu Abu-Ba'are, PhD, MA
- Assistant Professor of Nursing & Public Health
- H.J. Kitzman Endowed Fellow in Global Health Research
- Co-Chair, Community Capital Alliance for Recovery Research
- Affiliate, Yale Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS
Bio
Gamji Rabiu Abu-Ba'are is an Assistant Professor in Nursing and Public Health and the inaugural Harriet J. Kitzman Endowed Fellow in Global Health Research at the University of Rochester. He leads the Behavioral, Sexual, and Global Health Lab, which develops and tests behavioral health interventions across the United States, West Africa, and Western Europe. His research focuses on improving prevention and treatment outcomes among populations with high exposure to adverse behavioral health conditions, such as HIV, substance use, and other context-driven challenges, by addressing behavioral, structural, and health system barriers to care. He integrates implementation science with community-based methods to design interventions that improve service access through peer support, mobile delivery, and provider responsiveness. He also chairs the Community Capital Alliance for Recovery Research (CARR), a collaborative focused on drug use prevention and recovery in New York State.
Abu-Ba'are's approach is grounded in both lived experience and formal training. Raised in underserved urban settlements in Ghana, he began his public health work as a peer educator linking young men to STI and HIV services under a Global Fund project while pursuing his bachelor's degree at the University for Development Studies in Ghana. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Planning from the University for Development Studies in Ghana, a Master Arts in Urban Planning and Applied Geography (Health Geography sub-specialty) from Binghamton University, and a PhD in Community and Public Affairs (Community Sustainability and Population Health sub-specialty) from Binghamton University. He then completed a T32 postdoctoral fellowship at the Yale School of Public Health's Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS, where he developed LAFIYA, a group-based HIV self-testing intervention tailored for young men in urban informal settlements. He later expanded this work through multiple NIH-funded trials focused to increase HIV self-testing, reduce stigma among providers and targeted group, and leverage peer-driven mobile interventions to increase prevention and care engagement. He continues to broaden the scope of his research to address a wider range of behavioral health outcomes in partnership with affected communities and service systems.
Current Focus
Abu-Ba'are's current research focuses on improving access to prevention and treatment services for populations with high exposure to adverse behavioral health outcomes. Using the ADAPT-ITT framework, his work proceeds in three stages:
- Assess behavioral exposures, stigma, social vulnerability, service access, and structural and place-based contextual barriers that affect prevention and care engagement.
- Develop or adapt interventions in partnership with communities to address the behavioral and structural conditions that limit access to prevention and treatment.
- Test intervention strategies using mixed methods and implementation science to evaluate their impact on service uptake, care outcomes, and health system responsiveness.
This approach is applied across a range of behavioral health domains in both global and domestic contexts.
NIH/NINR
12/2023 - 11/2028
Role: Principal Investigator
NIH Fogarty, Yale University Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS/NIMH
7/2023 - 6/2026
Role: Principal Investigator
NIH/Fogarty International Ctr
7/2023 - 6/2026
Role: Principal Investigator
URMC, Research Support Grant
12/2024 - 4/2025
Role: Principal Investigator
NIMH/Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS
None/2023 - None/2024
Role: Principal Investigator