Bio:

Dr. Rogério Meireles Pinto is a Brazilian-American psychiatric social worker with a decade of practice experience with immigrants and ethnic/racial minority individuals, groups, and families in New York City. As a clinical worker, Dr. Pinto provided bi-lingual mental health services to youth, adults and families, and provided concrete and clinical services to mentally challenged individuals in low-income communities. Dr. Pinto’s community work includes conducting community-wide needs and resources assessments, program evaluations, and supervision and implementation of curricula on HIV and substance abuse prevention.

Dr. Pinto specializes in Community-Based Participatory Research and has done most of his teaching and research in the United States and Brazil. After receiving his PhD, Dr. Pinto joined a three-year NIMH-funded Postdoctoral Fellowship at the HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. In 2007, he was awarded from NIMH a Mentored Research Development Award (K01) to examine factors that facilitate researchers’ collaborations with HIV service providers, and to develop evidence-based models of collaboration that can be tested and replicated.

Dr. Pinto is conducting several other research projects, both in Brazil and New York, to further study the role of providers in HIV-prevention research and factors that influence engagement and retention of community-based collaborators in health-related research. Dr. Pinto’s research has been funded by NIMH, the HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies, the International Association of Schools of Social Work, and a Columbia University Diversity Initiative Research Fellowship.

Research Interests:

• Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR)
• Mixed-method research
• HIV prevention practice and research
• Racial, ethnic and sexual minorities
• Collaborative research with service providers
  

Awards:

• Society for Social Work Research 2010 Early Career Achievement Award.
  
• Society for Social Work Research 2004 Outstanding Social Work Dissertation Award.
  Factors that Influence African-American Women’s Participation in HIV Prevention Programs.
  
• CUSSW. Ph.D. program speaker at 2003 graduation, May 21, 2003.
• Council on Social Work Education: Clinical Minority Fellowship Program: 2000-2003.        
  
• Citation of Honor, New York State Senator Daniel R. Hevesi: for commitment to substance abuse prevention in Community Board 8, Flushing, New York. July 23, 2001.

Current Projects:

• Promoting Community Collaboration in HIV Research. Funded by the NIMH, the goal of this study is to identify factors that influence research collaboration and to test a model of collaboration among service providers.
  
  
• Promoting community collaboration in scientific research. The study's goal is to define specific mechanisms involved in the development of community partnerships for research. It is a Research Fellowship awarded by the Columbia University Diversity Program.
  
  
• Studying a community-focused model of disease prevention in Brazil. This study examines community-focused health service delivered by social work paraprofessionals in Brazil. Funded by the International Association of Schools of Social Work and the Institute of Latin America Studies at Columbia University.

Selected Publications & Presentations:

Book Chapters
Pinto, R. M. (2010). Mixed Methods Design. Encyclopedia of Research Design. In N. J. Salkind (Ed.). SAGE Publications.

Journal Articles
Pinto, R. M., Campbell, A. N. C., Hien, D., Yu, G., & Gorroochurn, P. (in press). Retention in the NIDA clinical trials network women and trauma study: Implications for post-trial implementation. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry.

Pinto, R. M., Yu, G., Spector, A. Y., Gorroochurn, P., & McCarty, D. (2010). Substance abuse treatment providers' involvement in research is associated with willingness to use findings in practice. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, 39, 188-194.

Pinto, R. M. (2009). Community perspectives on factors that influence collaboration in public health research. Health Behavior and Education, 36, 930-947.

Melendez, R. M. & Pinto, R. M. (2009). HIV Prevention and Primary Care for Transgender Women in a Community-Based Clinic. Journal of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care, 20, 387-397.

Pinto, R. M., McKay, M. M. & Escobar, C. (2008). “You've gotta know the community”: Minority women make recommendations about community-focused health research. Women and Health, 47, 83-104.

Dworkin, S. L., Pinto, R. M., Hunter, J., Rapkin, B., Remien, R. (2008). Keeping the spirit of community partnerships alive in the scale up of HIV/AIDS prevention: Critical reflections on the roll out of DEBI (Diffusion of Effective Behavioral Interventions). American Journal of Community Psychology.

Pinto, R. M., Melendez, R., Spector, A. (2008). Male-to-female transgender individuals building social support and capital from within a gender-focused network. Journal of Gay and Lesbian Social Services, 20, 203-220.

Pinto, R. M., McKay, M. M., Wilson, M. M., Phillips, M. L. A., Baptiste, D., Bell, C., Madison, S. M., & Paikoff, R. L.  (2007). Contextual influences on involvement in HIV prevention programs by low-income, urban, African-American women. Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 15, 271-289.

 Pinto, R. M., McKay, M. M., Baptiste, D., Bell, C. C., Madison-Boyd, S., Paikoff, R. L., Wilson, M., Phillips, D. (2007).  Motivators and barriers to participation of ethnic minority families in a family-based HIV prevention program. Social Work in Mental Health, 5, 187-201.

Pinto, R. M, Schmidt, C. N. T., Rodriguez, P. S. O., and Solano, R. (2007). Using Principles of Community Participatory Research: Groundwork for collaboration in Brazil. International Social Work, 50, 53-65.

Presentations
Pinto, R. M., Valera, P., Spector, Y. A. (2010, August). Understanding the formation of an HIV-focused Community Collaborative Board: Goals, Expectations and Challenges Faced. Presented at the International AIDS Conference in Vienna, Austria.

Pinto, R. M., Exner, T., Udoh, I. A., Remien, R. (2010, August). “I left this study feeling glad:” Benefits from participation of HIV+ individuals in a behavioral trial. Presented at the International AIDS Conference in Vienna, Austria.
 
Pinto, R. M., Melendez, R., Spector, A. (2010, August). Male-to-female transgender individuals building social support and capital from within a gender-focused network. Presented at the International Academy for Sex Research in Prague, Czech Republic.

Last updated August 18, 2010.