I am an independent investigator with more than a decade of experience conducting research on HIV-related syndemics, both domestically and internationally. My research activities focus specifically on understanding how syndemics are generated and sustained, and how they contribute to excess disease burden in marginalized populations, particularly among people with HIV. These studies employ a diverse range of methodologies, including causal inference methods from epidemiology as well as ethnographic and qualitative methods, and have yielded more than 19 original, first or second author articles published in peer-reviewed journals, multiple book chapters and an edited book volume. I was a contributor to The Lancet Series on syndemics in 2017; a member of the review panel for the NIH/NIDDK/NHLBI, Addressing the Impact of Syndemics on the Health of People with HIV and Diseases and Conditions, 2024 applications, a Guest Associate Editor of a special issue on syndemics published in Frontiers of Tropical Medicine, Tropical Disease Epidemiology and Ecology in 2024; and, a Guest Speaker/Ad hoc Keynote Speaker for the 2019 National Academies of Sciences Interpersonal Violence Syndemics and Co-Occurring Epidemics Preventing Violence in the Context of Opioid Misuse, Suicide, Social Disparities, and HIV workshop.

NHLBI/NIH R01HL160328-01A1 (Silverberg, M, and Satre, D). 07/2022-06/2027. Assessing syndemics of cardiovascular disease in people with and without HIV. Role: Co-I

Institute for Collaboration on Health, Intervention, and Policy, Seed Funding (Bulled, N, Lalla-Edward, S). 05/2023-04/2028. HIV and Cardiovascular disease syndemics in Urban South Africa. Role: PI

USAID-PEER Liberia/UMASS Medical School Global Health (Valdman, O, McQuilkin, P, Hatch, S, Levitz, S, Moormann, A, and Ram, S). 06/2018-08/2023. Clinical Research Training Development, Monrovia, Liberia. Role: Co-I

General Electric Endowment, South Africa Global Projects Site (Cape Town Project Center Director, Bulled, N). 05/2015-07/2019. Community-based Social Science Research Training, Cape Town, South Africa. Role: Director

NIH/Fogarty Foundation, Center for Global Health, University of Virginia (Dillingham, R and Guerrant, R). 05/2013-07/2015. Water and Health in Limpopo, South Africa: Water citizenship in rural South Africa; Syndemic of childhood enteric disease. Role: Post-doctoral Fellow

Books

Ali, I., Singer, M., & BULLED, N. (Editors, 2024). COVID-19 Syndemics of the Global South: A world divided. Routledge.

Bulled, N. (Editor, 2017). Thinking Through Resistance: Case studies of opposition to contemporary global health practices. Routledge.

Bulled, N. (2015). Prescribing HIV Prevention: Bringing Culture into Global Health Communication. Left Coast.

REFEREED JOURNAL ARTICLES

Syndemics

BULLED, N. (2025). Occupational Syndemics in Farmworkers in the Cape Winelands, South Africa. Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease, 10(7), 179. doi:10.3390/tropicalmed10070179

BULLED, N., & Singer, M. (2025). An Update on Syndemics: Editorial Comments. Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease, 10(7), 187. doi:10.3390/tropicalmed10070187

BULLED, N. (2024). Recommendations for empirical syndemics analyses: A stepwise methodological guide. Heliyon. 10(19), e38931. doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e38931

BULLED, N. & Singer, M. (2024). Undermining Health: The Occupational Syndemics of Miners in South Africa. Discover Social Science and Health. 4(36). doi:10.1007/s44155-024-00098-w

BULLED, N. & Singer, M. (2024). Conceptualizing COVID-19 Syndemics: A scoping review. Journal of Multimorbidity and Comorbidity. 26:14:26335565241249835. doi:10.1177/26335565241249835

Singer, M. & BULLED, N. (2024). Long Covid: A Syndemics Approach to Understanding and Response. Applied Research in Quality of Life. 19: 811-834. doi:10.1007/s11482-023-10266-w

BULLED, N., Singer, M., & Ostrach, B. (2022). Syndemics and Intersectionality: A response commentary. Social Science and Medicine, 295:114743.

Singer, M., BULLED, N., & Leatherman, T. (2022). Are There Global Syndemics? Medical Anthropology, 41(1):4-18. doi:10.1080/01459740.2021.2007907

BULLED, N. (2021). A new approach to measuring the synergy in a syndemic: Revisiting the SAVA syndemic among urban MSM in the United States. Global Public Health, 10:1-11. doi:10.1080/17441692.2021.1974513

Singer, M., BULLED, N., Ostrach, B., & Lerman-Ginzberg, S. (2021). Syndemics: A Cross-Disciplinary Approach to Epidemic Events like COVID-19. Annual Review of Anthropology. 50:41-58. doi:10.1146/annurev-anthro-100919-121009

BULLED, N. & Singer, M. (2020). In the shadow of HIV & TB: A commentary on the COVID epidemic in South Africa. Global Public Health, 15(8):1231-1243. doi:10.1080/17441692.2020.1775275

Singer, M., BULLED, N., & Ostrach, B. (2020). Wither Syndemics?: Trends in Syndemics Research, A systematic review 2015-2019. Global Public Health. 15(7):943-955. doi:10.1080/17441692.2020.1724317

Singer, M., BULLED, N., Ostrach, B., & Mendenhall, E. (2017). Syndemics and the biosocial conception of health. Lancet, 389(10072):941-950.

Biopolitics and Biological Citizenship

BULLED, N. (2023). Personal Networks and the Politics of Belonging: Refugee Integration in Thessaloniki Greece. International Migration, 00, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1111/imig.13214

BULLED, N. (2023). "Solidarity:" A failed call to action during the COVID-19 pandemic. Public Health Practice, 5:100379. doi:10.1016/j.puhip.2023.100379

BULLED, N. (2019). Public health’s social contract: An obstacle in the advancement of effective HIV technologies. Global Public Health, 14(9):1264-1274. doi:10.1080/17441692.2019.1585468

BULLED, N., Poppe, K., Ramatsisti, K., Sitsula, L., Winegar, G., Gumbo, J., Dillingham, R., & Smith, J. (2017). Assessing the environmental context of hand washing among school children in Limpopo, South Africa. Water International. 42(5):568-584. doi:10.1080/0508060.2017.1335140

BULLED, N. (2016). The Effects of Water Insecurity and Emotional Distress on Civic Action for Improved Water Infrastructure in Rural South Africa. Medical Anthropology Quarterly. 31(1):133-154. doi:10.1111/maq.12270

Boyd, T., Wright, M., Badejo, O., Dillingham, R., Santee Ann, C., Mondlane, N., Makhado, C., Meskina, M., Nevhutalu, P., BULLED, N., Masebe, T., Mavhandu, L., & Bessong, P. (2016). Impact of medical plurality on care engagement and treatment outcomes among people living with HIV in Limpopo, South Africa. Annals of Global Health, 82(3):406. doi:10.1016/j.aogh.2016.04.136  

BULLED, N. (2015). Conceptualizing Biopolitics: Citizen-state interactions in the securing of water services in South Africa. Medical Anthropology: Cross-Cultural Studies in Health and Illness, 34(6):533-550. doi:10.1080/01459740.2015.1050490

BULLED, N. & Green, E.C. (2015). Making voluntary medical male circumcision a viable HIV prevention strategy in high prevalence countries by engaging the traditional sector. Critical Public Health, 26(3):258-268. doi:10.1080/09581596.2015.1055319

BULLED, N. (2015). Social Models of Youth HIV Risk in Lesotho: Accounting for multiple dimensions of high risk environments. African Journal of AIDS Research, 14(3):239-254.

Bulled, N. (2015). Hesitance towards Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision in Lesotho: Reconfiguring global health governance. Global Public Health, 10(5-6): 757-772. doi:10.1080/17441692.2014.962559

Kenworthy, N. & Bulled, N. (2013). From modeling to morals: Imagining the future of HIV PrEP in Lesotho. Developing World Bioethics, 13(2):70-78. doi:10.1111/dewb.12029

Bulled, N. (2013). (Re)distribution of Blame: Examining the Politics of Biomedical HIV Knowledge in Lesotho. Critical Arts, 27(3):267-287.

Bulled, N. (2013). New Lives for Old: Modernity, Biomedicine, Traditional Culture and HIV prevention in Lesotho. Global Discourse, 1-16. doi:10.1080/23269995.2013.804700