About Me

Measuring health constructs that cannot be directly observed is a challenging process. When they can be observed, measurement is often costly and not realistic in clinical or low-income settings, where screening or self-report measures are more efficient. Enhancing the measurement of constructs that cannot always be directly observed is critical for clinical settings and has been a primary focus of my research. For example, I was the first to replicate the original factor structure of the Bayley Infant Neurodevelopmental Screener in rural South Africa, extending its utility to assess HIV-exposed infants in rural South Africa. In the context of an intervention to enhance the inclusion of male partners during the pregnancy of women with HIV, I developed a measure to enhance and measure the inclusion of fathers in Prevention of Mother-to-Child HIV Transmission programs and their effectiveness. In the US, I developed a preliminary version of the Regulating Emotions in Parenting Scale, which can be used to promote greater specificity in parenting interventions and uptake of adaptive emotion regulation strategies for parents. I have also collaborated with other researchers on optimizing low-cost measures, e.g., dry-blood spots, for use to measure adherence in low-income settings:

1. Rodriguez, V.J., Zegarac, M., La Barrie, D.L., Parrish, M.S., Matseke, G., Peltzer, K., and Jones, D.L. (in press). Validation of the Bayley Infant Neurodevelopmental Screener among HIV-exposed infants in rural South Africa. Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes (JAIDS). https://doi.org/10.1097/QAI.0000000000002479.
2. Rodriguez, V.J., Parrish, M.S., Jones, D.L., and Peltzer, K. (in press). Factor Structure of a Male Involvement Index to increase the effectiveness of prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission (PMTCT) programs: Revised Male Involvement Index. AIDS Care. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540121.2020.1786000. PMID: 32602359.
3. Rodriguez, V.J., and Shaffer, A.E. (in press). Validation of the Regulating Emotions in Parenting Scale (REPS): Factor Structure and Measurement Invariance. Journal of Family Psychology. https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/fam0000808.
4. Rodriguez, V.J., Shaffer, A., Are, F., Madden, A., Jones, D.L., and Kumar, M. (August, 2019). Identification of differential item functioning by race and ethnicity in the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. Child Abuse and Neglect, 94(104030). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2019.104030. PMID: 31181398.

Another area of research focus has been maternal psychopathology, often in understudied, underserved, and underprivileged groups, which has highlighted the need to study paternal psychopathology. This has included examining cross-lagged effects between depressive symptoms and intimate partner violence among women with HIV in South Africa during the perinatal period, as well as factors associated with suicidal ideation in this group. My collaborators and I found that the use of efavirenz, an antiretroviral medication, predicted suicidal ideation in pregnant women with HIV. In a study in the United States among mothers of preschool children from low-income backgrounds, I tested emotion dysregulation as a mediator between mothers’ maltreatment history and child-directed aggressive behavior. Emotion dysregulation mediated the association between mothers’ maltreatment history and child-directed aggressive behavior for psychological aggression, but not physical aggression. This research has important implications for women's mental health and their infants' and youths' socioemotional development, and culminated in the following selected publications:

1. Rodriguez, V.J., Shaffer, A., Lee, T.K. Peltzer, K., and Jones, D.L. (January, 2020). Psychological and physical intimate partner violence and maternal depressive symptoms during the pre- and post-partum period among women living with HIV in rural South Africa. Journal of Family Violence. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-018-0027-8. PMID: 32636575.
2. Rodriguez, V.J., Cook, R., Peltzer K, Jones D. (September, 2016). Prevalence and psychosocial correlates of suicidality among pregnant HIV positive women in Mpumalanga province, South Africa. AIDS Care. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540121.2016.1238442. PMID: 27690544.
3. Jones, D.L., Rodriguez, V.J., Alcaide, M.L., Weiss, S.M., and Peltzer, K. (July, 2018). The use of efavirenz during pregnancy is associated with suicidal ideation postpartum among women in rural South Africa. AIDS and Behavior, 1-6. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-018-2213-3. PMID: 29607661. 978906.
4. Rodriguez, V.J., Butts, S.A., Mandell, L.N., Weiss, S.M., Kumar, M., and Jones, D.L. (September, 2018). The role of social support in the association between childhood trauma and depression among HIV-infected and HIV-uninfected individuals. International Journal of STDs and AIDS, 30(1), 29-36. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956462418793736. PMID: 30170529.

Consistent with my interest on the role of parental factors that predict child development and health in at-risk environments, several of my publications have examined the role of parental factors (e.g., perinatal intimate partner violence, perinatal depression) on neurodevelopmental outcomes. I have also examined the role of child maltreatment on adult health outcomes, including cardiovascular disease, as well as factors that mitigate associations between maltreatment and psychopathology. I have also worked on projects using Bayesian analyses for identifying psychosocial factors predicting nonadherence to infant HIV medication regimens, increasing infant HIV infection risks:

1. Rodriguez, V.J., Peltzer, K., Matseke, G., and Jones, D.L. (May, 2018). Pre- and postnatal exposure to intimate partner violence among South African HIV-infected mothers and infant developmental functioning at 12-months of age. Archives of Women’s Mental Health, 21(6), 707-713. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00737-018-0857-7. PMID: 29796967.
2. Rodriguez, V.J., Matseke, G., Cook, R., Bellinger, S., Weiss, S.M., Alcaide, M.L., Peltzer, K., Patton, D., Lopez, M., and Jones, D.L. (October, 2017). Infant development and pre-and post-partum depression in rural South African HIV-Infected women. AIDS and Behavior 22:1766–1774. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-017-1925-0. PMID: 28986652.
3. Alcaide, M.L., Rodriguez, V.J., Abbamonte, J., Ramlagan, S., Sifunda, S., Weiss, S.M., Peltzer, K., and Jones, D.L. (October, 2019). Maternal factors associated with Infant Neurodevelopment in HIV-exposed uninfected infants. Open Forum Infectious Diseases, 6(10), ofz351. https://doi.org/10.1093/ofid/ofz351. PMID: 31660335.
4. Cook, R., Peltzer, K., Weiss, S.M., Rodriguez, V.J., and Jones, D.L. (January, 2018). A Bayesian analysis of prenatal maternal factors predicting nonadherence to infant HIV medication regimen. AIDS and Behavior, 22(9), 2947-2955. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-017-2010-4. PMID: 29302843.

Past research has demonstrated that interventions that are effective in one group or culture may not be effective in others. This issue is also relevant to the dissemination of self-report scales but is not as widely considered. Therefore, I have written about psychometric issues associated with the use of self-report instruments in studying parents and parenting. This includes psychometric issues such as measurement invariance, which has important implications for how constructs are conceptualized and understood in one group versus another. A systematic review I led examined whether measurement invariance by race and ethnicity was addressed in the development of parenting scales. I found that only 11 parenting scales across 13 studies had examined measurement invariance, highlighting how infrequently considered this is important psychometric property is in parenting research. Some of my lead author or collaborative studies have tried to address this, as diversifying any research areas requires the consideration of whether the constructs have similar meanings in different groups.

1. Rodriguez, V.J., Chahine, A., de la Rosa, A., Lee, T.K., Cristofari, N.V., Jones, D.L., Zulu, R., Chitalu, N., and Weiss, S.M. (May, 2019). Identifying factors associated with successful implementation and uptake of an evidence-based voluntary medical male circumcision program in Zambia: The Spear and Shield 2 Program. Translational Behavioral Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1093/tbm/ibz048. PMID: 31093661.
2. Rodriguez, V.J., LaCabe, L.P., Privette, C.K., Douglass, K.M., Peltzer, K., Matseke, G., Molefe, A., Ramlagan, S., Sifunda, S., Prado, G., Horigian, V., Weiss, S.M., and Jones, D.L. (September, 2017). The Achilles' Heel of Prevention to Mother-To-Child Transmission of HIV: Protocol Implementation, Uptake, and Sustainability. SAHARA J: Journal of Social Aspects of HIV/AIDS, 14(1), 38-52. https://doi.org/10.1080/17290376.2017.1375425. PMID: 28922974.
3. Rodriguez, V.J., Spence, A.D., Monda, M., and Jones D. (April, 2015). Couples Living with HIV: Men's Reproductive Intentions, Practices, and Attitudes. Journal of International Association of Providers of AIDS Care (JIAPAC), 16(2), 133-139. https://doi.org/10.1177/2325957415612127. PMID: 26467783.
4. Alcaide, M.L., Rodriguez, V.J., Fischl, M., Jones, D.L., and Weiss, S.M. (January, 2017). Addressing Intravaginal Practices in Women with HIV and at Risk for HIV Infection, A Mixed Methods Pilot Study. International Journal of Women’s Health, 9, 123-132. https://doi.org/10.2147/IJWH.S125883. PMID: 28280394.

A 17-year gap exists between a scientific innovation and its application in practice, diminishing the timely impact of important advances especially for underserved and marginalized populations affected by health disparities. Efforts to eliminate the gap utilize implementation science to understand the factors associated with low uptake, adoption, implementation, fidelity, and sustainability. I have been a part of developing, implementing, and disseminating interventions to low-income settings and underserved populations in South Africa, Zambia, and Argentina.This involved first-author papers employing large qualitative endeavors, focusing on issues related to the implementation and dissemination of such interventions to fathers in low-resource settings, even when the interventions are primarily designed to reach them. Some of my collaborative papers have examined how couple-level interventions lead to improvements in maternal and infant outcomes to address health disparities. These insights have influenced my desire to focus on parents and family-level interventions, and their relevance in promoting health equity. Such research can help develop meaningful ways to engage underrepresented populations in research to promote health equity at the family level.

1. Rodriguez VJ, Weiss SM, Hernández L, Bowa K, Zulu R, Jones DL. Zambian Parents' Perspectives on Early-Infant Versus Early-Adolescent Male Circumcision. AIDS Behav. 2023 Jun;27(6):1800-1806. PubMed Central PMCID: PMC10338018.
2. Sued O, Cecchini D, Rolón M, Calanni L, David D, Lupo S, Cahn P, Cassetti I, Weiss S, Alcaide M, Rodriguez VJ, Mantero A, Jones D. A small cluster randomised clinical trial to improve health outcomes among Argentine patients disengaged from HIV care. The Lancet Regional Health - Americas. 2022 September; 13:100307-. Available from: https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S2667193X22001247 DOI: 10.1016/j.lana.2022.100307
3. Rodriguez VJ, Abbamonte J, Alcaide M, Rodriguez Yanes N, de la Rosa A, Sued O, Cecchini D, Weiss S, Jones D. Motivational Interviewing Training for HIV Care Physicians in Argentina: Uptake and Sustainability of an Effective Behavior Change Intervention. AIDS and Behavior. 2020 November 27; 25(6):1675-1687. Available from: https://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10461-020-03083-x DOI: 10.1007/s10461-020-03083-x
4. Rodriguez VJ, Chisembele M, Jones DL, Cook R, Weiss SM, Alcaide ML. Influencing the importance of health, partners, and hygiene among Zambian women. Int J STD AIDS. 2018 Mar;29(3):259-265. PubMed PMID: 28764612.