Yale School of Public Health (YSPH) Professor, Director of the Center for Methods in Implementation and Prevention Science (CMIPS) and Director of CIRA's Interdisciplinary Research Core, Dr. Donna Spiegelman, ScD, was awarded an Implementation Science (IS) Consultation Hub Supplement by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as part of the NIH's overall effort to support research to enhance the implementation science knowledge base needed for Ending the HIV Epidemic: A Plan for America (EHE). The supplement, awarded in September 2020, is titled R3EDI: Rigorous, Rapid, & Relevant Evidence aDaptation & Implementation to Ending the HIV Epidemic.
R3EDI will provide technical assistance on IS designs, frameworks, strategies, measures and outcomes through coaching, training, and consultative services to EHE project teams working in priority communities around the United States. The hub has been assigned 7 specific projects, listed below, each of which is addressing specific pillars of the EHE campaign in the areas of diagnosis, prevention and treatment. Through this work we expect to collaboratively engage in translating local knowledge from specific projects into more generalizable knowledge, strengthening the evidence base for scaling up efforts to end the HIV epidemic.
- Evaluating the Healthix Bottom Up Strategy in New York City Using an Implementation Science Framework; Project Director (PD): McKaylee Robertson; Implementing Partner (IP): Housing Works; Affiliation: Einstein/Rockefeller/CUNY CFAR – Harris Goldstein (PI); Jurisdiction: New York City
- Faith in Action: Clergy and Community Health Center Implementation Strategies for Ending the Epidemic in Mississippi and Arkansas; PD: Amy Nunn; IP: ARcare and Open Door; Affiliation: Providence/Boston CFAR – Susan Cu-Uvin (PI); Jurisdiction: Mississippi and Arkansas
- Evaluation of An Emergency Implemented Telemedicine Intervention, its Acceptability and Impact on HIV Care and Treatment Among Persons Living with HIV; PD: Claudia Hawkins; IP: Howard Brown Health; Affiliation: Third Coast CFAR – Richard D'Aquila (PI); Jurisdiction: Cook County, Illinois
- Integrating High-intensity Re-engagement into Routine Health Department Services in MS; PD: Christine Khosropour; IP: Mississippi State Department of Health; Affiliation: UW CFAR – Jared Baeten (PI); Jurisdiction: Mississippi
- Patient-Focused PrEP Management to Increase Coverage for Highest Priority Patients in Primary Care in a High Prevalence Jurisdiction; PD: Viraj Patel; IP: Montefiore Health System – Montefiore Prevention Program; Affiliation: Einstein/Rockefeller/CUNY CFAR – Harris Goldstein (PI); Jurisdiction: Bronx County, NY
- Clinical Decision Support for PrEP; PD: Julia Marcus and Douglas Krakower; IP: Jefferson County Department of Public Health; Affiliation: Harvard CFAR – Rajesh Gandhi (PI); Jurisdiction: Alabama
- Evaluating Implementation Strategies of Behavioral Health Integration intoHIV Prevention and Care including Telehealth; PD: Robert Remien and Claude Ann Mellins; IP: Northeast/Caribbean AIDS Education and Training Center; Affiliation: HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies- Robert Remien (PI); Jurisdiction: Essex County, New Jersey
Other key personnel include:
- Project coordinator: Raul Hernandez-Ramirez, PhD, Associate Research Scientist in Biostatistics, Department of Biostatistics and CMIPS, and Associate Director, Interdisciplinary Research Core, CIRA, YSPH – Quantitative approaches for analyzing large, complex data in HIV research
- Quantitative analysis: Debbie Humphries, PhD, MPH, Clinical Instructor, Department of Chronic Disease Epidemiology, Yale School of Public Health – Mixed methods community engaged research
- Community Engagement Specialist: Daniel Davidson, MSW, MPH, Assistant Director, Community Research and Implementation Core, CIRA – Partnership formation and Community Engaged Research (CEnR) methods and practice
- Qualitative analyst: Christine Simon, PhD, MPH, Associate Research Scientist, Yale School of Public Health - Innovative methodological approaches to community-based research
The hub team's areas of expertise include IS methods, frameworks, strategies, measures and outcomes; HIV/AIDS research and study design; management of experimental and observational IS studies; and data collection, sampling; quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods analytic approaches; partnership formation, and community-based participatory research. The team plans to draw on the expertise of other faculty as needed, both CIRA affiliated and more broadly, with an initial list of collaborating investigators, together with their areas of expertise, below:
- Trace Kershaw, PhD, Professor, Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, YSPH, Director, CIRA – Use of quantitative and qualitative approaches to studying social and structural determinants of health
- Paul Cleary, PhD, Anna M. R. Lauder Professor, Department of Health Policy and Management, Yale School of Public Health, Department of Sociology, Yale University – Multilevel interventions and health services research in HIV/AIDS
- Brian S. Mittman, PhD, Senior Scientist, Department of Research and Evaluation, Kaiser Permanente – Implementation Science in U.S.-based HIV research
- Marcella Nunez-Smith, MD, MHS, Associate Professor, Department of General Medicine, Yale School of Medicine and Department of Chronic Disease Epidemiology, Yale School of Public Health – Community engagement and qualitative and mixed methods research
- Sten Vermund, MD, PhD, Dean, Anna M.R. Lauder Professor of Public Health, Yale School of Public Health, Department of Pediatrics, Yale School of Medicine – HIV/AIDS research and data safety monitoring in the context of HIV Prevention trials
- Luke Davis, MD, Associate Professor, Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Disease, Yale School of Public Health, Department of Pulmonary Medicine, Yale School of Medicine – Implementation science frameworks and human-centered design thinking for contact tracing; cascade methods to evaluate HIV intervention implementation and fidelity
- Ashley Hagaman, PhD, MPH, Assistant Professor of Public Health, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Yale School of Public Health – Use of innovative tools and collaborative systems approaches, sample size estimating methods for multi-site cross-cultural research
- Rachel Nugent, PhD, Vice President, Global Noncommunicable Diseases, RTI International – Innovative economic evaluation methods
- Steven L. Bernstein, MD, Professor, Department of Emergency Medicine, Yale School of Medicine and Department of Chronic Disease Epidemiology, Yale School of Public Health – Teaching implementation science; use of sequential multiple assignment randomized trial (SMART) methods and multiphase optimization strategy (MOST)
- Elizabeth Rhodes, PhD, Postdoctoral Associate, Yale School of Public Health – Use of qualitative methods and implementation outcomes assessment
- Fan Li, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Biostatistics, Yale School of Public Health – Design and analysis of experimental designs
- Xin Zhou, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Biostatistics, Yale School of Public Health – Design and analysis of experimental designs
- Inbal (Billie) Nahum-Shani, PhD, Research Associate Professor, Co-Director: Data-Science for Dynamic Decision-Making Lab (d3lab), University of Michigan – Innovative adaptive interventions such as SMART
- Laura Forastiere, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Biostatistics, Yale School of Public Health – Analysis of studies affected by non-compliance or non-adherence and causal inference methods
According to Dr. Donna Spiegelman, "We are thrilled to have been given this opportunity to partner with front-line community-based organizations around the country, to put our technical skills to work in a collaborative effort to end the AIDS epidemic in this country. Yale's rich environment of public health professionals experienced with our most pressing needs made it possible to quickly pull together a superb team."
Published: Tuesday, November 10, 2020
