Team Grant : HIV/AIDS and STBBI Community-Based Research – LOI

Aboriginal Peoples

Governance and Public Policy

Social Justice

Well-being, Health and Biomedical Discovery

Deadlines

Academic Unit: inquire with unit

Memorial Deadline: Monday 10th, June 2024

External Deadline: Thursday 13th, June 2024

Description

Over the past few decades there have been remarkable advances in the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and management of Sexually Transmitted and Blood-Borne Infections (STBBI), including HIV/AIDS, hepatitis B (HBV), hepatitis C (HCV), syphilis, chlamydia, gonorrhea, and human papilloma virus (HPV). By the end of 2020, Canada reported having met two of the three 90-90-90 global targets for HIV set by the United Nations, achieving an estimated 90% of cases diagnosed, 87% of diagnosed individuals receiving treatment and 95% of individuals on treatment having suppressed viral load1. Importantly, gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men (gbMSM) in Canada, have met all 90-90-90 targets and this group is close to achieving the new commitments to 95-95-95 targets set for 20252, with data for this group reporting 98-96-943. While the gbMSM community continues to report the largest proportion of cases of HIV and other STBBI and there remains a need to ensure continued progress for the gbMSM community, the strong and sustained advocacy and engagement with STBBI research from this community has proven successful for improving health outcomes.

Unfortunately, the same promising trends are not being observed across all key populations4 disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS and STBBI in Canada. The impacts of stigma, racism, sexism, and other systemic and structural barriers differ across demographics and this perpetuates disparities in availability of and access to appropriate prevention, diagnostic and care services. For example, women, people who use drugs and First Nations, Inuit and Métis Peoples are experiencing rapidly increasing rates of infections for HIV and other STBBI. These groups also have lower estimated rates of awareness of their HIV status, of treatment uptake and of viral suppression for HIV than the overall population5. For other key populations, such as African, Caribbean and Black communities, the availability of adequate provincially-collected data for federal reporting is lacking. Furthermore, the limited available data, including data collected by community-based research groups, suggests Black people represent the second greatest number of new HIV cases, and in 2019 Black women accounted for 42.1% of new cases amongst women.

To address these growing inequities across diverse communities in Canada and ensure research progress is shared with all people, the CIHR HIV/AIDS and STBBI Community-Based Research (CBR) Program is launching new funding opportunities to enable greater participation of key populations disproportionately affected by STBBI. The Team Grants: CBR for HIV/AIDS and STBBI represents the first phase of funding. A second funding opportunity for a CBR Coordinating Centre to support the teams is anticipated to be launched, pending internal approvals, once teams are established.

Purpose of the CBR Team Grants: CBR for HIV/AIDS and STBBI

The purpose of the Team Grants: CBR for HIV/AIDS and STBBI Funding Opportunity (referred to hereafter as CBR Team Grants) is to fund a diversity of CBR teams to build and strengthen capacity for CBR and knowledge mobilization (KM) activities that are centred in the self-determined priorities of the communities and will lead to improved health outcomes for key populations disproportionately affected by STBBI in Canada.

This funding opportunity is comprised of two stages:

• – Letter of Intent (LOI) Stage: Development Grants
  – Full Application Stage: CBR Team Grants

  LOI Stage: Development Grants

Applications for the CBR Team Grants funding opportunity will require submission of a LOI, where funds will be made available as Development Grants to support building community-centred teams and developing full applications. The Development Grants are intended to provide the time and resources to enable distinction-based approaches, foster equity, diversity and inclusion within the CBR Teams, and facilitate bringing together groups from diverse communities to support intersectionality in applications for CBR Teams, where appropriate.

Examples of possible use of funds for Development Grants include, but are not limited to:

• – Partnership development and community engagement events, including but not limited to: culturally appropriate ceremonies, feasts and other activities related to engagement of Indigenous Elders and Knowledge Keepers and community members;
  – Collaborative priority setting, consultation and planning activities; and/or
  – Activities and personnel to provide grant writing support for communities.

  Successful applicants at the LOI stage are required to participate in a strengthening workshop. The aims of this workshop are two-fold: 1) to help guide teams in developing full applications by providing information on application and evaluation processes; and 2) to support sharing and building connections amongst the teams to identify opportunities for collaboration, partnerships, and areas of intersectionality and collective impact.

Only successful applicants from the LOI stage will be invited to submit a Full Application for CBR Team Grants.

Full Application Stage: CBR Team Grants

Applications for the CBR Team Grants must advance a community-centred approach to research and KM with emphasis on capacity building within the community. Through the establishment of collaborative partnerships between community leaders and researchers, teams will support reciprocal knowledge sharing and must ensure leadership and engagement from community members, people with living and lived experience (PWLLE), and community organizations. CBR Team Grants will have flexibility to support teams in a range of research-focused activities.

Examples of activities supported by the CBR Team Grants include, but are not limited to:

• – Expanding research literacy and education within communities;
  – Training and mentoring for community members engaged in research, knowledge mobilization and/or proposal development;
  – Developing culturally safe and appropriate knowledge mobilization tools, products and events to ensure dissemination and uptake of research findings by community members, organizations and policy makers; and
  – Conducting community-centred intervention research and implementation science studies.

  Research Areas

This funding opportunity aligns with key research priorities identified in the CIHR HIV/AIDS and STBBI RI Strategic Plan 2022-2027, including:

• – Reducing the impact of stigma, discrimination and systemically entrenched oppression of people living with and at risk of STBBI;
  – Developing, testing and advancing culturally-safe and holistic models of care and evidence-based interventions for STBBI testing and prevention;
  – Advancing knowledge of sexual and reproductive health, including enhancing understanding of the role of sex, gender, sexuality and systemic barriers in the experiences, risks and outcomes associated with STBBI; and
  – Implementation science research that will maximize uptake and adoption of new and existing interventions for STBBI in different health, social and cultural settings.

  Applications for the CBR Team Grants MUST focus on addressing the self-determined STBBI6 focused priorities of their community/ies and strengthen community capacity for research.

To improve health equity and capacity building across a diversity of communities, applications MUST identify a key population below of primary focus for the team:

• – Gay, bisexual men and other MSM
  – People who use drugs
  – African, Caribbean and Black People
  – Racialized people and migrants, particularly from regions with high HIV or HCV prevalence
  – Sex workers and their clients
  – People living in or recently released from correctional facilities
  – Transgender and non-binary people
  – Young women (~16-25 yrs)
  – Youths
  – Indigenous Peoples (including First Nations, Inuit and/or Métis People)

  Although applications are sought with focus on specific populations, an intersectional lens across key populations may be considered within the project as community members affected may identify with more than one key population. See Evaluation Criteria for requirements on applying an intersectional lens.

• See ResearchNet for more information.

Funding Sources

Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR)