Grant: Planning Grants - Priority Announcement: HIV/AIDS

Northern British Columbia (BC) has had limited success in addressing HIV/AIDS. The region lacks suitable human and financial resources to engage the social determinants of health that underlie such a persistent, communicable disease. This circumstance is not new for a northern, rural and remote region. Many regions face similar resource issues, including limited human and financial means, reflected in a gap between needs and adequate programming and research. Prince George, the largest urban centre in northern BC, has been host to many researchers and research projects. However, the region, and similar northern, predominantly rural areas, have not directly benefited from these projects. Many research projects are not inclusive of the region, as many researchers do not attempt to incorporate issues of community engagement indicative of northern, rural and remote regions. As a result, we propose to create greater collaboration among regional participants, researchers, knowledge users (KUs) and those located in urban centres. The purpose of the planning meeting is to assemble leaders in HIV/AIDS research and service delivery, policy-makers, and PHAs in northern BC, with the specific intent, to map current research projects and established collaborations with in Northern BC. Further, we aim to plan the next steps for future collaboration through knowledge exchange and the identification of research questions and emerging issues among people living with HIV/AIDS (PHAs), researchers, and knowledge-users involved in HIV research, while keeping the coordination and provision of HIV health services in northern BC paramount in our focus.