Larissa Jennings Mayo-Wilson, PhD MHS

About

Larissa Jennings Mayo-Wilson, PhD MHS, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Health Behavior and Department of Maternal and Child Health at the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health. She is a sexual and reproductive health behavioral scientist with methodological skills in epidemiology, biostatistics, and qualitative science.
 
Dr. Jennings Mayo-Wilson’s research focuses on how to improve sexual and reproductive health (SRH), including HIV, in adolescents and young adults with low economic status and unmet SRH needs. She does this through three main areas of research. One, using quantitative randomized behavioral clinical trials, she designs and evaluates economic and environmental interventions to improve SRH outcomes, including HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STI). This includes interventions involving employment, income, grants, savings, vouchers, or financial incentives. Through intervention effectiveness research, she also studies the mechanisms that link these economic and environmental factors to adverse SRH/HIV outcomes. Second, her research studies how economic and environmental factors – such as economic violence, paid leave policies, or built and virtual health care settings – affect SRH/HIV care-seeking and related outcomes. She is also interested in how undergoing SRH care therapies impacts economic outcomes for women and children. Dr. Jennings Mayo-Wilson examines these questions using quantitative data from nationally-representative population surveys, qualitative interviews, and social media data. Third, her research examines how self-care approaches enhance or minimize access to SRH services in communities with high poverty rates and low access to care. She is particularly interested in STI self-testing, fertility self-injection, pregnancy monitoring, and HIV prophylactic and therapeutic self-medication (e.g., PrEP/ART).
 
As part of this work, Dr. Jennings Mayo-Wilson is a faculty fellow at the Carolina Population Center, a research fellow at the Cecil. G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research, and an Adjunct Associate Professor at the UNC School of Medicine, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Honors and Awards

Mentored Research Scientist Career Development Award, K01
2020, National Institutes of Health

Health Disparities Research Loan Repayment Award
2018, National Institutes of Health

Golden Apple Excellence in Teaching Award
2015, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

PRIDE Scholars Training Award, Comparative Effectiveness Research
2015, National Institutes of Health, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health

HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN) Scholar
2014, National Institutes of Health

Leopold Schepp Scholar
2007, The Leopold Schepp Foundation, New York

Research Activities

Principal Investigator, NIH R01. Microenterprise and behavioral economics intervention for sexual and biomedical HIV prevention in U.S. young adults (EMERGE): a community-based randomized clinical trial
 

Co-Investigator, NIH R01. Creating access to resources and economic support (CARES): a randomized clinical trial to mitigate pandemic-related economic and mental health harms in U.S adults
 
Principal Investigator, UNC. Clinical and community care experiences of women undergoing in vitro fertilization (CCCE): a longitudinal qualitative study of preconception maternal morbidity in the U.S.
 
Principal Investigator, UNC. Effect of work and finances on self-management of sexual and reproductive health: a longitudinal analysis of the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS) U.S. young adult cohort
 
Principal Investigator, UNC. Perceptions of unmet sexual and reproductive health care needs (PRICE) among followers of Facebook influencers who are living with HIV: a mixed methods analysis of video and comment posts
 
Co-Investigator, Gilead Sciences, Inc. Combined HIV services and microenterprise for equitable and sustained recovery (CHIMES) intervention for sober house residents in Tanzania: a pilot study
 

Research Interests

Service Activities

Associate Editor, Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI)
 
Advisor, National Working Positive Coalition (NWPC) Research Working Group
 
Advisor, Guaranteed Income & Health Consortium (GIHC)
 
Advisor, Adolescent Trials Network – Institutions, Organizations, and Policy (IOP) Senior Leadership Group

Education