Grant: CIHR New Investigator

The goal of this research program is to create an evidence-based platform to inform policies and programs that would best promote women-centred sexual and reproductive health and HIV care. Over the next five years, I will lead this program that will address these gaps and will advance methodological approaches to the study of HIV/AIDS by formalizing an innovative program to improve the health, safety, and well-being of women living with and affected by HIV/AIDS. My specific aims are: 1.To develop a large program of epidemiological research on understanding broad sexual and reproductive health needs as well as key factors shaping HIV prevention, treatment and care for women living with and affected by HIV/AIDS. 2.To expand an epidemiological research program based on the development and use of advanced statistical, mathematical and spatial methodological approaches in research on women living with and affected by HIV/AIDS, including establishing a platform for the research training of students and postdoctoral fellows. The setting for the majority of this research program is Metropolitan Vancouver, Canada. In joining the Department of Medicine at UBC as faculty, I will bring strong methodological and research innovation, spanning infectious disease epidemiology, HIV prevention and treatment, and monitoring and evaluation of large-scale population-level interventions both in Canada and globally. The proposed research program directly addresses global calls for a research agenda on women and HIV. This program will provide valuable, policy-relevant information and enable policy and programmatic responses tailored to the needs of women living with and affected by HIV/AIDS. Moreover, this program will develop and use a number of novel analytic techniques that are under-used in research with women living with and affected by HIV/AIDS, but which are well-suited to take into account the complex pathways and dynamics that shape HIV prevention, treatment and care.