The Third Coast CFAR (NIH P30 AI 117943) announces a new Scientific Working Group and a solicitation for members.  

Description of the I³EtHE Scientific Working Group: The new I³EtHE Scientific Working Group (SWG) aims to catalyze collaborations that promote the adoption and integration of evidence-based practices, interventions, and policies into routine health care and public health that can help end the HIV epidemic (see HHS plan to End the HIV Epidemic [EtHE]). Research-practice collaborations to develop and test innovations that will overcome long-standing obstacles to better HIV prevention and viremia suppression, and the use of implementation research methods to advance them, will be key values of the working group. The group will work together, and as smaller “action teams”, to develop multiple proposals for funding via the Third Coast CFAR Developmental Core, national CFAR administrative supplement RFAs, service grants from HRSA or CDC, as well as NIH research proposals.

Goals of the I³EtHE SWG: The goals are to apply to CFAR for grants to obtain pilot data. Additional goals are to enable applications based on pilot data to HRSA and/or CDC for delivery of innovative services that will do more than current practices to EtHE, as well as to NIH for research grants to EtHE (including implementation research). The previous SWG of the Third Coast CFAR (END HIV SWG) was highly successful in building collaborations between public health departments and academics that enabled 10 new research projects to gain funding; the focus of the new SWG differs in being aligned with the EtHE.

Membership of the I³EtHE SWG:  It will be composed of faculty from Northwestern University, the University of Chicago and Lurie Children’s Hospital, leaders from the Chicago and Illinois Departments of Public Health, and practitioners and research professionals from organizations that provide HIV testing, prevention, and clinical/social services in Chicago, including Howard Brown Health, AIDS Foundation of Chicago, and other interested community partners. Investigators with expertise in clinical, behavioral, and implementation research and collaborators whose work focuses on provision of HIV testing, prevention, and treatment services are welcome.