This is a competing continuation of the UCLA training program to prepare physician and social/behavioral scientists for academic research careers focused on Global HIV/AIDS Prevention. Despite the remarkable advances in prevention of new HIV infections and treatment of HIV disease, significant challenges remain that highlight the need for integrating behavioral science and biomedical approaches. We request a renewal of our highly successful training program to help ensure that a new generation of scientific leaders is prepared to take us forward into the next era of HIV research. A new focus of our program in this continuation will be to integrate training activities for all of the MD and PhD trainees to foster biobehavioral approaches to solving the major problems that preclude halting the HIV/AIDS epidemic. We are requesting two new trainee slots each year, with a total of six trainees in the program at any time and a total of 14 fellows enrolled over the funding period. To reflect our biobehavioral approach, each year one new trainee will be a physician specializing in adult or pediatric infectious diseases (i.e., an ID fellow), and one a social/behavioral scientist with a doctoral degree from a relevant field such as public health, sociology, or public policy. We will ensure all physician trainees receive rigorous behavioral science training and that all PhD trainees are provided training in use of biomarkers and conducting research with clinical context and relevance. All trainees will be provided training and support to launch their careers as independent investigators in global health and HIV/AIDS prevention. Each fellow is in the program for a maximum of three years and will seek extramural funding to take into a new faculty position at an academic or health institution. Program goals are achieved through a variety of seminars, mentoring, secondary data analyses, and the design and implementation of original data collection conducted in our collaborating field sites that include Malawi, South Africa, Cambodia, Peru, and Brazil. We have a unique opportunity in our program to foster interdisciplinary collaboration among peers due to the inclusion of both MD and PhD scientists. In this renewal application, our co-leadership plan embodies biobehavioral science by having one PI, Dr. Judith Currier, who is a physician scientist who has incorporated behavioral objectives into biomedical research studies and one PI, Dr. Pamina Gorbach, who is a behavioral scientist who utilizes biomedical outcomes. Our program is especially designed to prepare young scientists for the future of the HIV/AIDS funding environment that will require competency in biobehavioral approaches. We will model this integration in our leadership and our research settings that emphasize Team Science as a building block for success.
This program prepares physician and behavioral scientists for scientific careers focused on HIV/AIDS prevention globally. The United States spends considerable amounts of resources in understanding, preventing, and treating HIV/AIDS worldwide. Such programs need to rest on a scientific foundation, and this program trains the next generation of scientists in bio-behavioral approaches to solving the major problems that preclude halting the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
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