A Fulbright Scholar Researching
on YRGCARE Methodology

Dr.Bruce Kieler, a research scholar sponsored by the Fulbright Program in collaboration with the U.S.Educational Foundation of India is now at YRGCARE, studying its methodology in providing health care and awareness, its success in reaching out to the people. His research project focuses on the role of community participation in planning and implementing health strategies in villages in rural and semi-rural areas of southern India.

As part of his study, Dr.Kieler will study the development of YRGCARE as a leader in providing health care for persons living with HIV/AIDS and in providing HIV prevention education. He will examine YRGCARE's development as a model of community health planning and determine if this model could be adapted for use in dealing with

other health issues, such as diabetes, malaria, and tuberculosis. He would also like to assess the use of the YRG CARE model for educating farmers about the risks of bird flu and how they might minimize their exposure to all poultry viruses.

Dr.Kieler received a doctorate in public health at the University of California at Berkeley in 1995. He specialized in behavioral science, with a focus on HIV/AIDS studies and health planning. While at Berkeley, he researched the economic impacts of AIDS (with Dr.Dorothy Rice and Ms.Anne Scitovsky of the University of California at San Francisco), the impacts of AIDS on sports (with Dr.Paul Staudohar of California State University), health care services for persons living with AIDS (with Dr.Thomas Rundall of the University of California at Berkeley), and HIV prevention (with Dr. Ishak Saporta of Tel Aviv University). In 1989, Kieler was awarded a Fulbright-Hays Graduate Scholarship to research HIV prevention in multicultural societies in Southeast Asia and to work as a health education specialist for the Singapore Ministry of Health.

Dr.Kieler's research interests include organizational change and the use of community-based coalitions for health planning. He has published articles on the challenges facing community-based HIV health and prevention planning coalitions. His critical examination of the challenges facing community-based coalitions served to help members of HIV prevention groups in Texas understand the nature of the health planning process and how it will benefit their communities.