CPRC

Past Research: Professor Muñoz-Laboy’s research has focused on sexuality, gender dynamics, migration, ethnic-racial tensions, urban cultures and health risk behavior. His early research experience included work on substance abuse and sexual health promotion interventions among high school and college students in Puerto Rico; intervention research on community health systems, sexual networks and HIV/STI risk with youth and young adults in Hartford, Connecticut (with the Institute for Community Research); and research on child health in rural villages in the State of Hidalgo, Mexico (with the Child Health Division of the World Health Organization) and in Kandy, Sri Lanka (with the Centre for Interdisciplinary Community Health Studies, University of Peradeniya). His doctoral dissertation focused on bisexuality, masculinity and HIV risk among Latino men in New York City, and for his postdoctoral research fellowship at the HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies (Columbia University), he extended his expertise in Latino sexual health with a community survey of 400 Latino men who have sex with men on HIV treatment optimism and sexual risk behavior in New York City. Muñoz-Laboy’s most recent completed project, a supplement to Jennifer Hirsch’s R01, explored the social context of HIV risk for Mexican migrant male workers in New York City. His work on Latino sexual health, bisexuality and HIV has been published in Sexualities, Journal of Bisexuality, AIDS Care , and the American Journal of Public Health.

Present Research: Muñoz-Laboy is currently PI on three projects exploring intersections between culture, gender and ethnic inequality, and sexuality. The first, an ethnographic study of culture and sexuality among urban minority youth in New York City, is funded by the Ford Foundation; second, an NICHD-funded study focuses on men who have sex with male-to-female transgender partners, also in New York City; and third, with pilot funding from Columbia University, he has initiated a research project on gender and power inequalities among bisexual male and female teenagers in New York City. In addition, Muñoz-Laboy is Co-Principal Investigator of Parker’s five-year study of religion and the social response to HIV and AIDS in Brazil and Co-Investigator of Hirsch’s STAR Partnership, in Vietnam. Muñoz-Laboy’s theoretically-engaged research on sexuality and health includes a recent critique of the concept of ‘familism,’ exploring how men’s family commitments shape sexual risk; an edited volume, together with SMS colleagues, on love and globalization; and an empirical piece analyzing how social geography shapes sexual risk, forthcoming in Culture, Health and Sexuality. Through his work on urban spaces and sexual risk, Muñoz-Laboy has developed considerable expertise in ethnographic approaches to spatial mapping, providing support to colleagues interested in incorporating spatial analysis into their ethnographic work. Complementing this active program of research is a long history of community collaboration, including work with Hispanic AIDS Forum, Gay Men’s Health Crises, Scenarios U.S.A, Latino Commission on AIDS and Bronx AIDS Services, and, most recently, serving as senior evaluator in the Bronx AIDS Services intervention research project—Special Programs for National Significance Bronx: Boogie Down Program. He also directs both the Doctor in Public Health (DrPH) program and the Master’s of Public Health (MPH) program at the Mailman School of Public Health.

Future Research: Muñoz-Laboy’s work on masculinity and sexual health will continue with three projects in the near term. First, he is developing an NIH research proposal resubmission to develop an effective-theoretically based intervention to reduce HIV risk among bisexually active Latino men in New York. Second, with Richard Parker, he is working on developing a project focused on the intersecting epidemics of violence, substance use, and HIV among youth in peri-urban Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Finally over the past 4 months, Muñoz-Laboy has been working with Mission San Juan Bautista (Episcopalian mission in the South Bronx, New York) and an organization of Latino ex-convicts to pilot an intervention to address adult men’s reproductive and sexual health (covering topics from testicular cancer to HIV risk behavior); his long-range plans include seeking further funding to develop and evaluate this intervention.

Professor Muñoz-Laboy's Departmental Biography Page