UC Riverside Approved for a $250,000 Engagement Award to Study HIV and Aging

UCR Today


School of Medicine’s Brandon Brown will lead the two-year project funded by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute
By Iqbal Pittalwala on April 14, 2017
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Brandon Brown.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. – A research team at the University of California, Riverside has been approved for a $250,000, two-year award through the Eugene Washington PCORI Engagement Awards program, an initiative of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). The funds will support bringing together stakeholders in the Coachella Valley, Calif., around the topic of HIV and aging.
Brandon Brown, an assistant professor in the department of social medicine and population health in the School of Medicine, will lead the engagement project at UC Riverside. Specifically, the project will focus on building the needed foundational relationships and capacity of stakeholders to conduct research on aging and HIV.
“We will create a shared governance structure including all stakeholders, disseminate knowledge and develop relationships, identify and explore key topics for future research, and build stakeholder capacity to engage in research,” said Brown, a member of the UCR Center for Healthy Communities.
Five major primary stakeholder groups have been already identified for the project: HIV+ patients, their caregivers, their providers, community-based organizations, and academics. The team led by Brown will start the project by creating a 12-person steering committee to guide all future activities, as well as a patient partner advisory board.
“We will hold a symposium with HIV and aging experts, including presentations on cutting edge research in the field and discussion panels involving multiple stakeholders including patients, caregivers, and providers to give their perspective on both living with and treating people HIV,” he said. “To select the priority HIV and aging-related health topics for future research, we will conduct focus groups and citizen panels where participants will choose a specific project to pursue in future grant proposals. We will also build capacity by providing targeted research training ...

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