This Mentored Research Scientist Development Award will allow the candidate to pursue her research and training goals at the University of California, San Diego and Pro-COMUSIDA, a community health clinic in Tijuana, Mexico. The candidate's long-term career goal is to become a leader in the area of international HIV prevention.
She aims to develop a base of skills and knowledge necessary to facilitate her transition into an independent investigator. Her specific training objectives are to: 1) develop a thorough understanding of individual- and dyad-level factors that contribute to HIV risk among couples with particular emphasis on drug use, sexual relationship power, and intimate partner violence;2) gain proficiency in research design and statistical techniques necessary for conducting dyad-level analyses with couples;3) acquire an in-depth understanding of theory-based HIV prevention interventions in order to design a couples-based HIV prevention intervention for female sex workers (FSWs) and their regular sexual partners;4) obtain further training in the ethical conduct of research, particularly with unique populations such as FSWs;and 5) to build general skills for an academic career. Recently, HIV prevalence among FSWs in Tijuana has increased from 2% to 6%, and 14% among FSW who inject drugs (FSW-IDUs). Globally, FSWs are considered a """"""""bridge"""""""" population who may transmit HIV/STIs to the general population. While the majority of research thus far has focused on individual-level risk factors among FSWs, comparatively little is known about their sexual partners and relationship characteristics. To address these gaps in knowledge, the proposed cross-sectional study will utilize quantitative methods to examine individual- and dyad-level correlates of HIV drug- and sex-risk behaviors among FSWs and their regular sexual partners in Tijuana.
The current study will yield information critical to HIV prevention policy in both the U.S. and Mexico, and will produce data to be used in the development of an intervention proposed in a subsequent R01 application. Interventions that reduce HIV risks among FSWs and their main sexual partners may curtail the growing HIV epidemic in the U.S.-Mexico border region.
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