Rulin C. Hechter, PhD, MS

Biography

Assistant Professor

Health Systems Science

Dr. Rulin Hechter, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Systems Science, is an infectious disease epidemiologist and substance abuse researcher, whose research focuses on the prevention and treatment of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, and the impact of psychiatric disorders and substance abuse on health outcomes and care engagement. Dr. Hechter is a research scientist with the Kaiser Permanente Southern California (KPSC) Department of Research & Evaluation. She is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Epidemiology at University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Hechter serves on the regional HIV Management Committee and she is the KPSC site principal investigator for the National Drug Abuse Treatment Clinical Trials Network (CTN) funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Education and Training

Degrees: MD, Suzhou Medical College, Suzhou, China
MS, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
PhD, University of California, Los Angeles

Fellowship: Fellowship, UCLA-Fogarty AIDS International Training and Research Program

Professional Positions

Teaching Assistant, Graduate student tutor: University of California, Los Angeles Department of Epidemiology; 2004-2006

Staff Research Associate: University of California, Los Angeles Department of Epidemiology; 2007-2008

Research Associate: Harold Simmons Center for Chronic Disease Research and Epidemiology, Los Angeles BioMed Research Institute; 2007-2010

Senior Graduate Student Researcher VI: University of California, Los Angeles Department of Epidemiology; 2009

Postdoctoral Research Fellow: Division of Epidemiologic Research, Department of Research and Evaluation, Kaiser Permanente Southern California; 2010-2015

Research Scientist I: Division of Epidemiologic Research, Department of Research and Evaluation, Kaiser Permanente Southern California; 2015-present

Adjunct Assistant Professor: University of California, Los Angeles Department of Epidemiology; 2016-present

Honors and Awards

Full Scholarship, Annual Course on Principles of STD and HIV Research: Center for AIDS and STD, University of Washington; 2005

Department Allocation Fellowship: UCLA; 2008-2009

Trainee Travel Grant: ID Week Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA; 2013

Young Investigator Scholarship: Annual Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, Seattle, Washington; 2015

Claudette Gravell Award for Improving HIV Care and Research: Kaiser Permanente; 2015

Scholarship: UCLA HIV/AIDS, Substance Abuse, and Trauma Training Program; 2015-2017

Conference Scholarship: 21st International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2016), Durban, South Africa; 2016

Conference Scholarship: 22nd International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2018), Amsterdam, the Netherlands; 2018

Scholarship, Multiple Chronic Conditions Scholars Program: Health Care Systems Research Network-Older Americans Independence Centers AGING Initiative; 2019

Scholarly Activities

: View Dr. Rulin C. Hechter's Researcher Profile

Peer-reviewed research manuscripts

Hechter RC, Jacobsen SJ, Luo Y, Nomura JH, Towner WJ, Tartof SY, Tseng HF. Hepatitis B testing and vaccination among adults with sexually transmitted infections in a large managed care organization. Clin Infect Dis. 2014; 58:1739-1745.
Hechter RC, Chao CR, Sidell MA, Sy LS, Ackerson BK, Slezak JM, Patel NJ, Tseng HF, Jacobsen SJ. Quadrivalent human papillomavirus vaccine (HPV4) initiation in boys in Southern California before and since routine use (2009-2013). Am J Public Health. 2015; 105:2549-2556. PMCID: PMC4638271.
Hechter RC, Bider-Canfield Z, Towner WJ. Effect of an electronic alert on targeted HIV testing among high-risk population. Perm J. 2018; 22:4-9. PMCID: PMC6172036.
Hechter RC, Horberg MA, Weisner C, Campbell CI, Contreras R, Chen LH, Yarborough BJH, Lapham G, Haller IV, Ahmedani BK, Binswanger IA, Kline-Simon AH, Satre DD. Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS) measures of alcohol and drug treatment initiation and engagement among people living with HIV and patients without an HIV diagnosis. Subst Abus. 2019. (Epub March 25, 2019).
Hechter RC, Qian L, Tartof SY, Sy LS, Klein NP, Weintraub E, Mercado C, Naleway A, McLean HQ, Jacobsen SJ. Vaccine safety in HIV-infected adults within the Vaccine Safety Datalink Project. Vaccine. 2019; 37(25):3296-3302.