HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies

Even in the face of new public health and political crises, the HIV/AIDS epidemic remains a critical public health emergency. Health disparities and structural inequities are still significant drivers of the U.S.and global epidemic, with the most vulnerable and marginalized hardest hit. This competitive renewal of the HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies (HIV Center) at New York State Psychiatric Institute (NYSPI) and Columbia University (CU) is based on the premise that biomedical advances for HIV prevention and treatment will not reach their full potential without rigorous behavioral, social science, and translational research to optimize uptake, adherence, and equitable implementation and scale-up. We will build on our interdisciplinary HIV research history– leveraging emerging knowledge bases and new and continuing community, scientific, and health department partnerships to actualize the power of biomedical advances in HIV prevention and care for the most vulnerable populations. Our Center evolves with each renewal – refocusing and bringing in new collaborators to meet current HIV/AIDS scientific and public health challenges. In the next five years, guided by the theme, Reducing HIV and Mental Health Disparities to End the HIV Epidemic (EHE), we will bring together an expanding group of investigators and clinical and community partners working at the forefront of HIV behavioral, social, biomedical, and implementation sciences. The renewed HIV Center will provide a rigorous, theoretically grounded behavioral and social science foundation that catalyzes and supports robust, innovative HIV research to maximize the benefit of biomedical advances for vulnerable US and global populations by addressing the following three Specific Aims: (1) To advance our understanding of individual, social, and systemic drivers of the HIV epidemic including mental health and social determinants of health and development of intervention and implementation science research to achieve local, national, and global EHE goals; (2) To promote translation of clinical and research findings to prevention and care settings for maximum equitable public health impact; and (3) To expand the cadre of HIV researchers by engaging an inclusive pipeline of emerging investigators – particularly those from groups under-represented in research. Our Cores ensure methodological and theoretical rigor, rapidly respond to new trends in the epidemic, support critical research-practice partnerships, and train new scientists. Three Research Cores will complement the Administrative and Development Cores: (1) Statistics, Data Science, and Data Management Core, promoting state-of-the-art approaches to study design, data science, and data analytic methods; (2) Clinical Translation Core, integrating biomedical and behavioral research for implementation in real-world settings; and (3) Health Equity Core, focusing on HIV disparities mediated by mental health problems including substance misuse and social determinants of health.