To address a continuing HIV epidemic among minority youth, it is imperative to grow and to educate the next generation of HIV researchers and to include among them minority researchers who have a deep understanding of issues in their own cultures and communities that may facilitate, or mitigate barriers to, effective intervention. Our theme for a Summer Institute and year-round mentoring program-""""""""Minority Researcher Skills in Youth, Community, Family and HIV""""""""-is informed by new evidence on the effectiveness of family- and community-based HIV intervention;documentation of new challenges, including mental health challenges;failure to date to """"""""upscale"""""""" effective HIV interventions to an appropriate level of reach and penetration in often highly-affected minority communities;and by the presence of a """"""""critical mass"""""""" of youth, community, family and HIV investigators in the New York City area, as well as of media and policy experts, whose views will be needed to author an effective and sustainable """"""""next generation"""""""" of HIV intervention. Housed at Hunter College within the City University of New York (CUNY), the largest and most diverse urban public university in the US, the Summer Institute will be led by its Schools of the Health Professions in collaboration with its School of Social Work and the CUNY graduate Health Psychology program. In three years of six-week Summer Institutes and four years of year-round extended mentoring, we will recruit, and advance the research careers of, a total of 8 early career academic faculty and advanced degree health/social service professionals, the former largely recruited from the 21-campus CUNY system and all recruited from the greater New York City metropolitan area. Activities are aimed at supporting fellows to achieve: 1) a complement of skills preparing them to become federally-funded researchers in youth, community, family and HIV, 2) pilot project fund awards, 3) successful completion of pilot projects, 4) a steady level of professional publication, 5) submission and award of further career development or research grant applications, 6) career advancement in positions that foster youth, community, family and HIV research, and 7) perception by fellows of mentoring benefits, not only from Summer Institute faculty, but from """"""""home"""""""" institution mentors, which Summer Institute faculty will assist the fellows to identify. Pertinent conferences and CUNY courses accompany these activities. Unique features derive from a transactional approach (i.e., client, community, service provider, policy maker and scientist as equal partners with different content knowledge and skill sets);from a vision of the phases of research from conceptualization to dissemination, using business project management techniques to aid in each phase's execution, with feedback into defining new, or re-defining past, research problems;and from a focus on both the personal and skill-building aspects of mentoring. In 3 years of six-week Summer Institutes within 4 years of extended mentoring, the Minority Researcher Skills in Youth, Community, Family and HIV program will recruit, and advance the research careers of, 8 fellows from the greater New York City region;these fellows will be equally divided between early career academic faculty and advanced degree health/service professionals. Activities are aimed at preparing fellows to become federally-funded researchers in youth, community, family and HIV, thereby increasing the number of HIV/AIDS researchers who are from communities disproportionately affected.
| Akinsulure-Smith, Adeyinka M (2014) Exploring HIV knowledge, risk and protective factors among west African forced migrants in New York City. J Immigr Minor Health 16:481-91 |
| Akinsulure-Smith, Adeyinka M (2014) Exploring female genital cutting among west African immigrants. J Immigr Minor Health 16:559-61 |
