Mohammad Bellal Hossain MSc (STD/HIV)

Research Degree Student

Room 308, 51 Bedford Suqare, London WC1B 3DP, UK

Tel: +44 020 7958 8172

Affiliated to: SEHR.

Disciplines: Anthropology, Epidemiology, Sociology.

Research areas: Health promotion, HIV/AIDS, Maternal health, Sexual and reproductive health, Social and structural determinants of health.

Other keywords: Males who have sex with males.

Background

I started my career as a "Quality Control Officer" at the National Institute of Population Research & Training (NIPORT) under the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of the People's Republic of Bangladesh, after my graduation from the Department of Sociology, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. Then I moved to the Department of Population Sciences, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh, as a Lecturer in the year 2001. In 2003, I was promoted to Assistant Professor. I have been awarded the Australian Development Scholarship (ADS) in 2004 to pursue my Master of Science in Medicine (Sexually Transmitted Diseases/HIV) Degree from the Sydney University, Australia. Since January 2007 I am here doing my PhD under the Commonwealth Scholarship Programme.

Teaching

At LSHTM, I am not involved in any teaching role yet. However, back in Bangladesh, I was involved to teaching courses like Social Science Research Methods, Techniques of Population Analysis, Basic Statistics for Population Scientists, Reproductive Health & Reproductive Rights, and Population & Development

Research

My current research is on males who have sex with males (MSM) in Bangladesh. The title of my research project is "Making the Invisible Visible: Community Development for HIV Prevention with Males who have Sex with Males in Bangladesh". This study will examine how different individuals, groups and networks within and around the HIV prevention agency for MSM in Bangladesh aim to determine how concepts like 'sexuality', 'community', 'sexual risk', and 'community development' are constructed and are used to inform the work of the HIV prevention agency for MSM. The particular focus of this research will be to explore how the concepts like 'community development' and 'sexual community' have been constructed for HIV prevention when it is often considered that MSM is a 'behavioural identity' rather than 'sexual identity', 'heterogeneous' rather than 'homogenous' and MSMs lack shared common interest because of their heterogeneity.