Sebastian Bonner is an Investigator at the Center for Urban Epidemiologic Studies (CUES) at The New York Academy of Medicine. Dr. Bonner received his PhD in educational psychology from the City University of New York’s Graduate School and University Center.
Dr. Bonner has experience in social and behavioral issues involved in prevention and management of infectious and non-infectious diseases. He is testing the efficacy of the DiSH Project, a group level intervention to reduce sexual risk among African American men who have sex with men (MSM). DiSH stands for Diet & Sexual Health. The intervention weaves proven cognitive-behavioral sexual risk-reduction information and skills-building modules into cooking and meal-sharing activities to engage participants in creating supportive caring communities of friends that value health, self-worth, self-identification as MSM, and social integration. This is a novel ecological approach to HIV risk-reduction in that the intervention re-engineers the social environment and models interpersonal socialization that can be replicated by participants within their own social contexts. Dr. Bonner is developing and testing the DiSH Project in collaboration with the New York Blood Center. Also in collaboration with the Blood Center, Dr. Bonner and his colleagues at CUES Victoria Frye and Linda Weiss are conducting a qualitative study that will lead to development and pilot testing of a group-level intervention to reduce sexual risk behavior and increase HIV testing among heterosexually active African American men. Dr. Bonner’s past behavioral interventions include an HIV-vaccine preparedness trial for female injection drug users and women who report sexual risk; drug and sexual risk reduction programs to prevent HIV infection as well as primary and secondary HCV infection among injection drug users; and a group-level intervention to reduce sexual risk among African American, Latino and White MSM with a profile of heavy alcohol and non-injection drug use.
Dr. Bonner's non-infectious disease focus has been asthma. He has spent more than a decade developing and testing educational, behavioral and structural interventions to reduce the impact of asthma in economically disadvantaged communities of color. Prior to joining the Academy, Dr. Bonner was involved in a study at Columbia University where he helped develop a model to classify parents according to their readiness to control asthma. The model describes four different phases that patients progress through as they improve their control of asthma. These phases – Asthma Avoidance, Asthma Acceptance, Asthma Adherence, and Asthma Control – recognize the importance of self-conceptions of health and disease, the need for empowerment to partner with the health care provider, the way the patient attributes wellness and exacerbations, and the variety of strategies to medically manage a disease that varies across seasons and across the lifespan. Since joining the Academy, Dr. Bonner developed an asthma case detection instrument that has been added to the first page of the Department of Health’s medical form required for enrollment in preschool programs. A health tracking system that Dr. Bonner designed to improve uptake of Asthma Action Plans and increase prescriptions of inhaled corticosteroids has been disseminated to 200 preschool centers reaching 20,000 children.
Contact information: (212) 822-7281; sbonner@nyam.org
