NC Collaborative HIV Epidemiology and Prevention (NC-CHEP) SWG

项目摘要/摘要- nc-chep SWG

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT – NC-CHEP SWG Despite a robust toolkit of prevention and treatment options, HIV incidence in the US stubbornly remains around 39,000 cases per year. The reasons for this sustained, endemic spread of HIV are complex and interconnected, making it an inherently challenging area of scholarship whose success depends on team science, interdisciplinary approaches. It is precisely this kind of dynamic research environment that CFAR Scientific Working Groups (SWGs) are designed for, and the UNC CFAR will promote research supporting Ending the HIV Epidemic efforts through its North Carolina (NC) Collaborative HIV Epidemiology and Prevention (CHEP) SWG. This team builds upon the long-standing partnership between UNC CFAR consortium partners and the NC Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), applying epidemiological data at the intersection of biomedical and social sciences. The NC-CHEP SWG will bring together experts across disciplines and investigators new to HIV to share ideas and approaches, with the goal of fostering an academic environment conducive to thinking “outside the box.” Under a conceptual framework acknowledging the interconnected social, ecological, and clinical realities of HIV prevention and care, the NC-CHEP SWG aims to: (1) develop and refine resources for characterizing and exploring the HIV prevention and care continuum; (2) sponsor and support activities to bring together intra- and extramural expertise on basic, social, implementation, and prevention science to share perspectives and develop research ideas; and (3) identify, recruit, and mentor new and early career HIV investigators, highlighting the unique intersections among social science, basic science, and medicine within the HIV field. To achieve these aims, the NC-CHEP SWG will: (1) update and curate a SWG membership directory and place it online; (2) meet with NC DHHS personnel to understand available data, any interval changes, and how to continue successfully working with NC DHHS data scientists and epidemiologists for data sharing; (3) work with the Clinical Core to expand the number of HIV-uninfected, at-risk individuals represented in the UNC CFAR HIV Clinical Cohort database; (4) initiate and direct work to characterize the prevention and care continuum in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic; (5) offer consistent, regularly scheduled programming with physical and virtual options to help members stay abreast of the “state of the science” in treatment and biomedical HIV prevention; (6) promote high-quality research ideas based on team science approaches through face-to-face and digital (asynchronous) peer review; (7) work with key faculty at UNC and our partners at historically Black colleges and universities to promote HIV science as a career path; and (8) increase the reach of the SWG members for disseminating their research by partnering with the state’s AIDS Education and Training Center to host webinars, work-in-progress talks, and virtual symposia.