Grant: Catalyst Grant: HIV/AIDS CBR Program - General Stream

AIDS service organizations (ASOs) in smaller Canadian centres have insufficient data on HIV issues as they pertain to local gay, bisexual, trans and other men who have sex with men (GBTMSM). As such, over-reliance on data from studies undertaken in other regions, such as in Canada's three largest metropolitan centres (Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver) occurs when designing HIV prevention programming. Our purpose is to acquire the requisite funds to develop a community-based research partnership between ASOs, academics, and GBTMSM (including people living with HIV/AIDS) in six southwestern Ontario regions. This team will do the necessary planning and capacity-building work to develop and submit a research proposal for a future Southwestern Ontario study focussed on HIV/AIDS issues among GBTMSM. We will build a community-based research collaborative that undertakes: 1) a literature review to identify gaps and pertinent theoretical approaches to the study of HIV issues among GBTMSM in smaller urban centres; 2) interviews with GBTMSM prevention workers and executive directors in ASOs to identify outreach strategies to GBTMSM, issues unique to each city region, and challenges to implementing knowledge uptake in ASO programming; 3) interviews with lead investigators on multi-city projects related to GBTMSM and HIV, in order to identify challenges and facilitating factors associated with such projects. Using the information gleaned from these activities, we will develop, pilot test, and refine a quantitative survey that addresses priority areas across sites as well as site-specific questions; an appropriate sampling methodology will also be developed for a proposed future study in the six regions of Southwestern Ontario. A final research team will be established, and this group will develop and submit a Project Grant proposal for a southwestern Ontario, region-wide study of HIV/AIDS issues among GBTMSM to CIHR's HIV/AIDS Research Initiative.