Program of Research title

The Collaborative: A Multi-Level Approach to Substance Abuse Treatment and HIV/AIDS Prevention and Care Services for Minority Men who Have Sex with Men

Suffix

PhD

Office Address

 344 Cohn, 5557 Cass Ave., Detroit, MI 48202

Program of Research

Dr. Zimmerman’s research has spanned over 40 years with focuses on health behavior change, HIV and teen pregnancy prevention, and methods for improving the validity of survey self-reports of sensitive behaviors. Most of his research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health.  Several successful intervention studies have been conducted to evaluate adapted versions of a comprehensive sex education curriculum for high sensation-seekers and impulsive decisions-makers in rural and urban U.S. settings, a community-randomized mass media campaign to increase condom use among college age individuals, and a combined alcohol and HIV prevention curriculum designed for secondary school students in economically disadvantaged township schools in South Africa. We have developed a health behavior change theory, the Multiple Domain Model of Behavior Change, which has been tested in the U.S., China and India. Additional work has been done to show the potential use of self-reports of honesty and the Multiple List Technique to improve prevalence estimates of sensitive behaviors such as sexual risk behavior and substance use.  Recent work developed a microeconomic intervention to reduce HIV and violence in transgender women, assess correlates of COVID preventive behaviors and COVID vaccination intentions, and correlates of intentions to receive a potential future HIV vaccine in men who have sex with men.

Phone

313-577-5724

Office Hours

 By appointment.

Education

 • BS (Sociology) – Stanford University
• MS (Sociology) – University of Wisconsin-Madison
• PhD (Sociology) – University of Wisconsin-Madison

Selected publications

 Xu, M. A., Choi, J., Rosenberger, J. G., Zimmerman, R. S., & DiClemente, R. (2024). Determinants of an HIV preventive vaccine among a highly vulnerable population: African men who have sex with men. Vaccines, 12(323).  https://doi.oarg.10.3390/vaccines12030323

Jones, M. D., Jones, K. , Almiroll, E., Payne, G., Graves, B., Schneider, J. A., Rijos, D., Zawitz, C., Zimmerman, R., & Brewer, R. (2023). Examining the awareness, acceptability, and adoption of conventional and non-conventional forms of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV
prevention among jail-involved Black sexual minority men (BSMM) and Black transgender women (BTW) in two diverse US cities. AIDS and
Behavior, 27, 1304-1313  https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-022-03866-4

Schwartz, J., Grimm, J., Zimmerman, R., & Clement, M. (2022). Information seeking and MSM’s beliefs about PrEP and condoms. Health Communication, 37(7), 889–896. https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2021.1876323

Schwartz, J., Grimm, J., Zimmerman, R., & Clement, M.  (2021).Exploring perceptions of healthcare providers’ communication skill and PrEP use in men who have sex with men. Communication Research Reports, 38(4), 262–271 https://doi.org/10.1080/08824096.2021.1943343

Zimmerman, R.S., Mehrotra, P., Madden, T. et al. (2021). The value of assessing self-reported and biological indicators of outcomes in evaluating HIV programs. Current HIV/AIDS Reports, 18, 365–376. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11904-021-00560-3

Poteat, T., Mayo-Wilson, L.J., Pereira, N., Wright, B. N., Smout, S. A., Sawyer, A. N., Cathers, L., Zimmerman, R. S., Grigsby, S. R., &
Benotsch, E. G. (2021). U.S. transgender women’s preferences for microeconomic interventions to address structural determinants of HIV
vulnerability: a qualitative assessment. BMC Public Health 21, 1394 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-11471-8

Jennings Mayo-Wilson, L., Benotsch, E. G., Grigsby, S. R., Wagner, S., Timbo, F., Poteat, T., Cathers, L., Sawyer, A. N., Smout, S. A., &
Zimmerman, R. S. (2020). Combined effects of gender affirmation and economic vulnerability to HIV: A qualitative analysis among US adult
 transgender women. BMC Public Health, 20(782).

Charney, R., Tener, V., Lavin, R., Zimmerman, R. S. & Bender. A. (2019). Ready to respond: A survey of interdisciplinary healthcare students and administrators on disaster management competencies. Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness, 14(6), 705-712.  https://DOI:10.1017/dmp.2019.96

Lavin, R., Tener, V., Charney, R., Zimmerman, R. S., & Bender, A. (2019).  Zika and Flint water public health emergencies: Disaster training toolkits relevant to pregnant women and children. Journal of Perinatal and Neonatal Nursing, 33(3), 229-237.

Won, S., Anderman, E.M., &  Zimmerman, R. S. (2019). Longitudinal relations of classroom goal structures to students’ motivation and learning outcomes in health education. Journal of Educational Psychology, Aug 15, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/edu0000399

Research Description