Africa Health Research Institute

Dr. Castle is an infectious disease physician whose work focuses on improving HIV prevention and substance use-related outcomes for men in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Her research program develops and evaluates community-based strategies for men who are poorly reached by traditional clinic-based models of care.

She is a faculty member at AHRI, an Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and an Assistant Physician at Massachusetts General Hospital. She also serves on the faculty of the HIV, Infectious Disease and Global Health Implementation Research Institute at Washington University in St. Louis and Afri-HIGH IRI, its Africa-based implementation research training program.

Her research group applies implementation science, behavioral intervention, and community-engaged research methods. Her current NIH-funded work includes developing and evaluating a male-tailored mobile clinic platform based at taverns in rural KwaZulu-Natal. This work aims to reduce barriers to HIV prevention while creating opportunities to address harmful alcohol and substance use. Her broader research interests include decentralized sexually transmitted infection testing and treatment, health and demographic surveillance systems, and the intersection of infectious and noncommunicable diseases.

Dr. Castle is committed to strengthening research capacity through mentorship and training. She mentors master’s and doctoral students in South Africa and internationally. Prospective students and collaborators may contact her at alison.castle@ahri.org