Strategic Directions 2020

Mission:

To support scientists in California to develop, evaluate, and disseminate innovative research for (a) eliminating new HIV infections, (b) optimizing treatment uptake and outcomes for all persons living with HIV, and (c) addressing the comorbidities and social determinants that threaten the health and well-being of persons at risk for or living with HIV.

Strategic Directions:

• Fosters the meaningful engagement of stakeholders– including persons living with or at risk for HIV infection, communities, policy-makers, academics, and services providers – in the design, conduct, interpretation, and dissemination of research findings.
• Supports the development and sustainability of research and evaluation capacity among key partners in the public health response to HIV in California, including public health departments, community-based organizations, and advocates.
• Invests in high-risk, high-reward, high-rigor research that has the potential to substantially and rapidly advance HIV epidemic control.
• Addresses unmet needs for HIV research by prioritizing areas that are not addressed by other funders.
• Supports implementation science designed to generate actionable knowledge that, when taken to scale, offers effective and cost-effective approaches for stemming new infections and averting HIV-associated morbidity and mortality.
• Encourages a rapid-cycle iteration approach to developing, implementing, evaluating, and advancing strategies leading to the evidence-based transformation of clinical care systems and public health practices.
• Welcomes a complexity science approach that appreciates the dynamic, interconnected relationships between biological, personal, social, and structural determinants of HIV infection risk and associated morbidity.
• Funds research that illuminates and mitigates social determinants associated both with inequitable access to prevention and treatment services and disparate health outcomes.
• Adopts a syndemics approach to health and disease that addresses common HIV-co-morbidities (e.g., Hepatitis C, other STIs, Substance Use Disorders).