Sarah T. Roberts

Sarah Roberts is an investigator in the Women’s Global Health Imperative (WGHI), a group within RTI International’s Social and Statistical Sciences Group dedicated to improving the health status of women and girls around the world. Dr. Roberts’ research focuses on the behavioral, social and structural factors that increase the risk of HIV/STI for women and girls in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly the role of relationship dynamics, male engagement, stigma, and intimate partner violence, and in the design of interventions to maximize uptake of and adherence to biomedical HIV prevention strategies in women.

Dr. Roberts’ additional research experience includes studies of mathematical modeling of ART roll-out, clinical studies of TB diagnosis in people living with HIV, and malaria case-finding in rural areas. She completed her PhD in Epidemiology in 2016, with dissertation research focused on violence and HIV among women in Kenya and Uganda.

At RTI, Dr. Roberts is the principal investigator (PI) on two NIH-funded R01 studies evaluating the effectiveness and implementation of interventions to support PrEP use among adolescent girls and young women in Kenya (R01MH125671) and in Zimbabwe and South Africa (R01MH137804). She has also also led or supported multiple studies on HIV and PrEP-related stigma and violence prevention, and provides technical input on behavioral assessments, quantitative, and qualitative methods for other related protocols. Dr. Roberts is a member of RTI’s Global Gender Center, and is interested in collaboration opportunities related to intimate partner violence, stigma and discrimination, HIV/AIDS, and sexually transmitted infections in young women, as well as opportunities to continue her research in TB, HIV treatment, and malaria.