Larry Ouellet, PhD
Research Professor Emeritus
Epidemiology and Biostatistics
Pronouns: he/him/his
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About
Dr. Ouellet is a Research Professor Emeritus in the Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), and a long-time member of the UIC Community Outreach Intervention Projects (COIP). UIC-COIP was founded in 1986 to implement and evaluate a street-based-based HIV prevention intervention for people who inject drugs, which became known as the Indigenous Leader Outreach Model. COIP currently operates four storefront offices in Chicago and mobile units that offer services related to HIV/AIDS, viral hepatitis and other infectious diseases associated with substance use, including a syringe services program, naloxone distribution, and case management. Through a collaboration with the university’s UIC Community Clinic Network/Department of Medicine, COIP sites also offer HIV medical, pharmacy and mental health care, including treatment for substance use, as well as general medicine clinic specializing in wound care. From 2000 to 2010 Dr. Ouellet was COIP’s director and is now an associate director. His research includes evaluations of needle exchange, HIV prevention through street outreach and cognitive-behavioral risk reduction interventions for people who inject drugs. Other studies examined transitions into drug injection by young heroin users, racial and ethnic changes in injection drug use, HIV risk associated with ‘shooting galleries’, incident HIV infection among sex partners of people who inject drugs, prevalent and incident HIV and HCV infection among young people who inject drugs, prescription opioid misuse, research methods appropriate for studying people who use illicit drugs, service provision to stigmatized populations, sex-for-crack exchanges, nomenclature associated with crack cocaine and its impact on risk reduction messages, HIV risk among low-income drug-using bisexual men, and trends in HIV risk behavior for the National HIV Behavioral Surveillance system operated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Recent research examined systems for improving HIV testing, treatment and retention in care for persons entering and exiting correctional facilities. Dr. Ouellet also consults for the qualitative component of a study that examines substance use and HIV/HCV/overdose risk in rural settin, and, until 2023, he was the Chicago representative for the National Institute on Drug Abuse’s National Drug Early Warning System (formerly the Community Epidemiology Work Group).
Selected Publications
Walters SM, Frank D, Felsher M, Jaiswal J, Fletcher S, Friedman SR, Ouellet LJ, Ompad DC, Jenkins W, Pho MT. How the rural risk environment underpins hepatitis C risk: qualitative findings from rural southern Illinois, United States. Intl J Drug Policy 2023;112, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2022.103930
Young JD, Patel M, Badowski M, Mackesy-Amiti ME, Vaughn P, Shicker L, Puisis M, Ouellet LJ. Improved virologic suppression with HIV subspecialty care in a large prison system using telemedicine: an observational study with historical controls. Clin Infect Dis. 2014;59(1):123-6
Boodram B, Gobub ET, Ouellet LJ. Socio-behavioral and geographic correlates of prevalent hepatitis C virus infection among young injection drug users in metropolitan Baltimore and Chicago. Drug Alcohol Depend. 2010;111(1-2):136-145.
Broz D and Ouellet LJ. Racial and ethnic changes in heroin injection in the United States: implications for the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Drug Alcohol Depend. 2008;94(1-3):221-233.
Ouellet LJ, Huo D, Bailey SL. HIV risk practices among needle exchange users and non-users in Chicago. J Acquir Immune Defic Synd. 2004:37(1):1187-1196.
Thorpe LE, Ouellet LJ, Hershow R, Bailey SL, Williams IT, Williamson J, Monterroso E, Garfein R. Risk of hepatitis C virus infection among young adult injection drug users who share injection equipment. American Journal of Epidemiology. 2002;155(7):645-653
Wiebel W, Jimenez AD, Johnson WA, Ouellet LJ, Jovanovic B, Lampinen T, Murray J, O’Brien MU. Risk behavior and HIV seroincidence among out-of-treatment injection drug users: a four year prospective study. J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr. 1996;12:282-289.
Ouellet LJ. Pedal to the Metal: The Work Lives of Truckers. 1994. Philadelphia: Temple University Press
Ouellet LJ, Wiebel WW, Jimenez AD, Johnson WA. Crack cocaine and the transformation of prostitution in three Chicago neighborhoods. In: Ratner, MS, ed. Crack Pipe as Pimp: An Ethnographic Investigation of Sex-For-Crack Exchanges. 1992. New York City: Lexington.
Ouellet LJ, Jimenez AD, Johnson WA, Wiebel WW. Shooting galleries and HIV disease: variations in places for injecting illicit drugs. Crime and Delinquency. 1991;37:64-85. Also, Drugs, Crime and Criminal Justice, Vol. 1: Histories and Use, Theories and Debates, ed. Nigel South. 1995. Aldershot, England: Dartmouth.