Community Engagement Core

PROJECT SUMMARY The translational science spectrum represents each stage of research: pre-clinical, clinical, and implementation science.

Conducting research across the translational spectrum, as proposed in this P01, that meaningfully addresses alcohol use among young people living with HIV (YPLWH) in Florida, necessitates active involvement of young people, policy makers and key stakeholders. The Community Engagement Core (CEC) co-directed by Drs.

Nicole Ennis and M.

Isabel Fernandez, is tasked with developing and maintaining authentic partnerships between researchers and YPLWH as well as those with the power and resources to quickly scale- up scientific discoveries into practice using a community engaged research (CEnR) approach.

We have centralized all of the recruitment, engagement, retention and assessment functions for all of the three studies into this resources core which is more efficient and cost effective than relegating these functions to the individual projects as is typically done.

From the start, the CEC will engage YPLWH and key stakeholders to develop: 1) tailored advertisements and insta-stories to post on targeted social media sites and gay dating apps to promote interest in and recruitment into the three studies: 2) the e-Informed Consents; 3) the SHARE website; and 4) review of the assessment measures and onboarding procedures.

The primary activities of stakeholder engagement will be: 1) Refine project protocols in conjunction with stakeholders to ensure an equitable CEnR Context; 2) Manage a web-based portal for bidirectional communication to ensure an equitable CEnR Process; 3) Evaluate our CEnR Process by assessing stakeholder: a) perceptions of the CEC activities; b) adoption of new guidelines and polices that result from CEC participation; and c) perceived challenges and benefits of participation; and 4) Support the recruitment of participants who reflect the characteristics of YPLWH in Florida.

Therefore, the overall goal of the CEC for the SHARE P01 is to serve as a resource for participant and stakeholder engagement and retention in the research process and to measure the impact of the CEnR approach across all three projects in this P01. The CEC has two specific aims: Aim 1.

Direct and manage recruitment, engagement, retention and assessment activities associated with implementation of the three projects proposed in this SHARE P01.

Aim 2: Manage and evaluate the dynamic process that supports sustained engagement and active participation of our stakeholders (i.e., community stakeholder organizations and Youth Advisory Council) in the research and dissemination efforts of the SHARE P01.

The expected outcome is that ongoing community input and collaborative agenda setting will result in evidence and interventions tailored to the settings and populations being studied thereby making it more readily accepted by those communities.