Building Research in Inter-Disciplinary Gender and HIV through the Social Sciences (The BRIDGES Programme)

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Project Summary/Abstract This supplement application builds on the parent grant, ‘Building Research in Inter-Disciplinary Gender and HIV through the Social Sciences’ (BRIDGES), a 5-year, FIC- and NIMH-funded D43 training program based at the University of Cape Town’s (UCT) Division of Social and Behavioural Sciences (DSBS), School of Public Health and Family Medicine. The BRIDGES Program aims to strengthen UCT’s capacity to serve as a global leader in gender and HIV social science research by building both individual and institutional capacity for innovative gender and HIV social science research in South/sub-Saharan Africa. This supplement application will allow us to offer an intensified training component in HIV and Aging and also broaden the scope of our training to include both scientists from our BRIDGES Programme as well as other D43s and training programs in the area. The dearth of research among older persons living with HIV is in part linked to a lack of support for research and skilled researchers to conduct research on aging populations. There is a need to support and strengthen research in the social sciences with a specific focus on aging and HIV in the South African context. Mentored training opportunities that are embedded in research projects present an ideal opportunity to intensively train and mentor early career fellows in a focused research area to build research capacity and strengthen their understanding of key research domains, in this case HIV social science research with a focus on aging and gender (as aligned with the parent D43). A formal short course will be developed to train a broader set of fellows in issues related to older people, aging, HIV and gender within LMICs. This application therefore proposes to: Aim 1: To equip an early career research fellow with social science research skills and experience in HIV and aging with a focus on OPLWH and gender through a mentored research fellowship exploring experiences of intersecting stigma and particularly gender on OPLWH and the impacts of these on their HIV outcomes. Aim 2: To train the existing BRIDGES fellows and other affiliated post- graduates (n=15) in key issues and research methodologies for research with OPLWH through a one-off, 2-day short course.