Grant: Planning Grants - Priority Announcement: International Research Collaborations

This workshop builds upon the Canada-Colombia collaborative effort on HIV/AIDS that initiated in April, 2009 with a first exploratory workshop held in Cali, Colombia. A principle of this collaboration is to structure efforts that primarily target local needs associated to the local HIV/AIDS epidemic. Based on the research priorities defined in the first meeting, three aspects have been selected to be discussed further within the collaboration: 1) Rapid and expanded HIV testing and counseling; 2) Ethnographic studies to determine the type and importance of behavioral factors influencing the risk of HIV/STD transmission in the South West of Colombia; and 3) applications of the HIV genetic data on epidemiologic research. The main objective is to delineate an operational framework to implement research projects on these three areas. This operational framework includes: 1) identifying individuals from the local community who could carry out community-based research projects (for rapid epidemiologic and ethnographic studies) and the data collection strategy to perform HIV-genotype-based research. The strategy to use includes three four-hour workshops, each to cover one of the three subjects mentioned above. First an experts in the field will introduce the subject, second a group discussion will be held and third a research proposal is outlined for purposes of grant applications. .