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  Dr. Steven Safren is the Director of Behavioral Medicine, and is an Associate Professor in Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Safren is also the Director of the Cognitive Behavioral and Behavioral Medicine Tracks of the MGH clinical psychology internship, and a Senior Research Scientist at Fenway Community Health. Dr. Safren received his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University at Albany (State University of New York) in 1998, and did his internship and post-doctoral fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Safren has over 100 professional publications inclusive of data-driven papers, reviews, chapters, commentaries, and books; and has been the PI of 7 NIH-funded grants. Within behavioral medicine, Dr. Safren’s primary focus is on HIV. He has published two successful randomized controlled trials of interventions for HIV medication adherence, and has recently completed a NIH-supported (R21) randomized controlled trial of CBT for medication adherence and depression in HIV+ patients with depression. He also has an ongoing NIDA-funded R-01 to conduct an efficacy study of this intervention in individuals with comorbid opioid dependence. Most recently, Dr. Safren is the P.I. of a multi-site, NIMH-funded R01 to examine the efficacy of this approach in HIV-infected patients in care. This project is being conducted at MGH, Fenway Community Health, and Brown. He has extended this approach to diabetes, and has an ongoing NIMH-funded R01 to use CBT to treat depression and increase adherence in type 2 diabetes. The therapist treatment manual and client guide for this treatment (CBT-AD) have been published by Oxford University Press, as part of their series, “Treatments that Work”, and are available for purchase through the Oxford University Web site or Amazon.com.
His work on adherence to HIV has been extended internationally through collaborations with the HIV Prevention Trials Network and the AIDS Clinical Trials Group. Accordingly, he is the protocol chair of HPTN 063, which is an observational cohort study of HIV-infected patients in care to take place in Zambia, Thailand, and Brazil. He has conducted several other studies in India, and has an ongoing R21 to develop and pilot test a prevention intervention for Indian men who have sex with men (MSM).
Dr. Safren is a reviewer for the National Institutes of Health’s study sections that review grants related to behavioral aspects of HIV/AIDS.
Within the field of CBT, Dr. Safren’s most recent focus has been on adult ADHD. He completed one of the only randomized controlled trials of a psychosocial intervention for adults with ADHD, which was funded by an NIMH-funded R-03, and targeted individuals who have been stabilized on medications but continued to show clinically significant symptoms. As a result of this successful study, he has an ongoing efficacy study of his intervention, funded by a 5 year NIMH-funded R-01. His therapist treatment manual and client guide for the cognitive-behavioral intervention has been published by Oxford University Press, as part of their ongoing series, “Treatments that Work”, and is being published internationally, including translations into Dutch, German, and Portuguese.
Complete Curriculum Vitae
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