PARACAS: Program for Advanced Research Capacities for AIDS in Peru

描述（由申请人提供）：我们的秘鲁艾滋病高级研究能力方案（PARACAS）的总体目标是巩固秘鲁卡耶塔诺埃雷迪亚大学（UPCH）成熟的艾滋病毒研究培训框架，在该框架中，杰出的年轻或处于职业生涯中期的卫生研究人员将通过为实施优化和有效的护理模式提供可靠的证据，从而实现科学自主，全面解决艾滋病毒是一种慢性、长期疾病的事实。不可否认，卫生服务应促进更早地开始抗逆转录病毒治疗，同时增加对艾滋病毒/艾滋病感染者的护理，因为这种结合保护并有利于个人和社区健康。在这方面，PARACAS的受训者将提出基于综合分析的干预战略，考虑生物医学方面和与进入和继续接受治疗过程有关的多维角度，例如艾滋病毒感染者（成人、青少年和儿童）、其家庭、社区和保健工作人员的角度。因此，美国大学拟议的相关培训（3名公共卫生硕士学员和2个博士后职位）将基于两个支柱：行为科学，对这些观点进行广泛、科学的分析；实施科学，以确保分析能够转化为具体的循证干预措施。由于共存结核病（TB），特别是在秘鲁常见的耐多药结核病，增加了艾滋病毒携带者感染的疾病负担，我们的PARACAS还将解决这些感染作为早期进入和保留护理的障碍的作用。PARACAS是继三所大学（UPCH）、西雅图华盛顿大学（UW）和伯明翰阿拉巴马大学（UAB）的成功合作之后的一项倡议，也设想了长期的学术成果。PARACAS将通过培养“批判性超前思维”模式，促进互补性专业知识和不同经验水平的受训者之间的互动、领导能力和团队合作，甚至是高级医科本科生（串联研究小组），实现指导系统和促进“变革性学习”。这些战略应有助于培养新一代的内科科学家，他们的贡献应继续改善艾滋病患者的生活。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The overall aim of our Program for Advanced ReseArch Capacities for AIDS in Peru (PARACAS) is to consolidate a mature HIV research training framework at Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia (UPCH), in which outstanding young or mid-career health researchers will reach scientific autonomy by providing sound evidence for the implementation of optimized and efficient care models that comprehensibly address the fact that HIV is rather a chronic, prolonged condition. Undeniably, health services should foster earlier initiation of antiretroviral therapy (ART) in parallel to increasing retentio in care of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA), as this combination preserves and benefits individual and community health. In that regard, PARACAS' trainees will propose intervention strategies built upon a comprehensive analysis that considers biomedical aspects and multidimensional perspectives related with the processes of entry and retention in care, such as the perspectives of PLWHA (adult, adolescents, and children), of their families, their communities, and the health staff. Accordingly, the proposed interrelated training at US (3 MPH trainees and 2 postdoctoral positions) will be based on two pillars: behavioral sciences for a broad, scientific analysis of those perspectives; and implementation science, to assure that the analysis can be translated to specific evidence-based interventions. Because coexistent tuberculosis (TB) and particularly multidrug resistant TB, frequent in Peru, add burden of disease to PLWHA, our PARACAS will also address the role of these infections as barriers for early entry and retention in care. As PARACAS stands as an initiative that follows the successful collaboration of three universities, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia (UPCH), the University of Washington (UW) in Seattle, and the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), long-standing academic outputs are also envisioned. PARACAS will enable mentoring systems and promote "transformative learning" by means of fostering the "thinking critically ahead" model and stimulating the interaction, leadership, and team work of trainees with complementary expertise and different level of experience, even advanced undergraduate medical students (tandem research groups). These strategies should serve to nurture new incoming generations of physician scientists whose contributions should continue notoriously improving the lives of PLWHA.