Dr. Breny Bontempi is an Associate Professor of Public Health at Southern Connecticut State University. Her research aims to eliminate health disparities through community-based participatory action research that informs public health practice. She is committed to work that helps us to understand how social and cultural factors; such as norms, economics, poverty; and/or power imbalances by race, class or gender affect individual health behaviors.
Her past projects include: assessments and evaluations on HIV medication adherence programs; exploring the influence of sex ratio imbalances on HIV risk behaviors among low-income, African American women in North Carolina; and gender disparities among college students’ HIV beliefs and behaviors. She currently directs the Graduate Minority Scholars Program in Public Health at Southern.
Dr. Breny Bontempi is currently working on a formative research project exploring the long-term care needs of Latinos living with HIV/AIDS in Connecticut and a photovoice project with African American women on issues related to diabetes. She serves on the board of AIDS Project New Haven, is an Associate Scientist with Yale’s Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS, and is affiliated with UConn’s Center for Health Intervention and Prevention (CHIP) Research Center.
