José A. Bauermeister, PhD, MPH, FSBM

Dr. Bauermeister has pioneered community-based, action-oriented strategies to improve the reach & impact of mHealth applications for LGBTQ+ youth. His work integrates youth-based participatory strategies within digital health tools to improve their reach and impact. To accelerate innovation and impact in LGBTQ+ health, Dr. Bauermeister founded the Eidos LGBTQ+ Health Initiative at the University of Pennsylvania. Eidos sees a world where community experiences, diverse partnerships, thought leaders, and public health science join to advance the wellbeing of the LGBTQ+ community. At Eidos, Dr. Bauermeister cultivates and engages emerging and experienced leaders from community, academic, civic and business spheres to create innovative solutions for the LGBTQ+ community.

Dr. Bauermeister’s scholarship is grounded in social justice and characterized by a commitment to addressing structural and interpersonal barriers that hinder the social and personal well-being of SGM communities. Alongside race, class and gender, sexuality structures how we relate and interact with one another, and can give way to social and health inequalities when some sexualities are privileged over others. Dr. Bauermeister has sought to examine how to leverage intragroup and intergroup relationships to promote innovative strategies that address the needs of vulnerable SGM communities.

NURS 3530: Health Communication in the Digital Age

NURS 8230: Designing Intervention to Promote Health and Reduce Health Disparities

NURS 8240: Health Equity: Conceptual, Linguistic, Methodological, and Ethical Issues

Technology-Assisted Interventions

Dr. Bauermeister leads several technology-assisted multilevel interventions to reduce  the psychosocial vulnerabilities experienced by sexual and gender minority youth across the United States. He has pioneered the integration of youth-based participatory strategies during mHealth intervention development and testing, as well as the use of geospatial and behavioral tailoring techniques to improve the reach and impact of mHealth applications. Dr. Bauermeister currently is PI of several clinical trials, including a life skills program for adolescent sexual minority men, and a social support platform focused on addressing stigma for Black and Latinx sexual and gender minority adolescents and young adults.

Community-engaged research

Dr. Bauermeister addresses health inequities by developing and testing sexual health promotion programs for vulnerable young sexual and gender minorities via academic-community partnerships. He has pioneered the integration of community-based, action-oriented strategies such as mystery shopping to evaluate the quality of services offered through HIV/STI agencies across the United States, and the delivery of technical assistance and capacity building programs to address gaps in agencies’ service delivery. Using community engagement principles, he involves community members in decision-making on everything from the research questions to be asked to how to collect and analyze the data.

Biomedical HIV Prevention

Dr. Bauermeister leads and contributes to large biomedical clinical trials focused on developing new biomedical HIV prevention technologies for use globally. With the FDA-approval of a daily oral pill as a strategy to avoid HIV infection, there has been an impetus in developing and testing additional HIV prevention technologies in the form of douches, vaginal rings, gels, inserts and injectables.  Through his work, Dr. Bauermeister uses participatory methods to ensure that new biomedical HIV prevention solutions are acceptable and behaviorally congruent with populations most impacted by the epidemic. He served as Protocol Chair for DESIRE (Developing and Evaluating Short-acting Innovations for Rectal Use; MTN 035), a 5-country protocol that systematically examines SGM youths’ preferred formulation modality (e.g., fast-dissolving insert, suppository, douche) for the future delivery of drugs to help prevent HIV/STI when engaging in receptive anal sex. He also served as Protocol Chair of ATN DREAM: a novel Phase I safety clinical trial examining the acceptability, tolerability and safety profile of a PrEP douche among adolescent and young adult men. These technologies could serve as prevention alternatives to barrier methods (e.g., condoms) or systemic prophylaxis (e.g., daily oral-delivered Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis) for men and women around the globe. 

At Penn Nursing, Dr. Bauermeister works alongside students, faculty and staff, and community partners to develop and test innovative strategies that can enrich the lives of LGBTQ+ people through the Eidos LGBTQ+ Health Initiative at the University of Pennsylvania. At Eidos, students are exposed to opportunities to leverage social enterprise, community engagement, education, and research to further the sustained well-being of the LGBTQ+ community. 

• Fellow, Society for Behavioral Medicine
• Health Innovator Fellow, The Aspen Institute
• 2018 Penn Fellow, University of Pennsylvania
• Presidential Professor, University of Pennsylvania
• Past Chair, HIV/AIDS Section, American Public Health Association
• Excellence in Teaching Award, School of Public Health, University of Michigan
• Editorial Board Member - American Journal of Community Psychology, Journal of Community Psychology, Archives of Sexual Behavior, AIDS Education & Prevention, Annals of LGBTQ Public and Population Health, and Journal of Youth & Adolescence
• Joan Lynaugh Faculty Mentorship Award for Fostering Scholarly and Professional Development within the Faculty, Department of Family & Community Health, University of Pennsylvania
• Research Award for Distinguished Contribution to Nursing and Healthcare Scholarship, Department of Family & Community Health, University of Pennsylvania