Zambia Education Network for Implementation Science Training in Health (ZENITH)

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT The nation of Zambia has a generalized HIV epidemic with adult prevalence of 11.0%, but now stands on cusp of reaching HIV epidemic control. As the HIV epidemic evolves, Zambia needs to develop local implementation science capacity to address key and vulnerable populations for the last mile epidemic control. To train this cadre of implementation scientists, we propose the Zambia Education Network for Implementation Science Training in Health (ZENITH), a partnership between University Teaching Hospital, the premier medical training site in Zambia, and the University of Maryland Baltimore (UMB), an implementation partner with nearly 20 years of HIV capacity building and medical/technical assistance in Zambia. The goal of ZENITH is to develop Zambian short, medium, and long-term implementation science capacity at UTH to address the unmet need of key and vulnerable populations towards attaining sustainable epidemic control.  Aim1 : We will build short-term, immediate research capacity by having 25 students (5 per year) participate in a new Implementation Science Institute (ISI) in Lusaka to learn basic approaches to implementation science research, including methods, biostatistics, qualitative methods, and introduction to grant & manuscript writing. This will be a one-month intensive course taught at UTH in January.  Aim 2: We will build medium-term research capacity by supporting 8 students (2 per year) via the two- year Master in Health Sciences (MHS) in Implementation & Dissemination Science at UMB. Virtual courses done online in Zambia.  Aim 3: We will build long-term independent research capacity by supporting 2 students for PhD studies at UMB, including Epidemiology at UMB Graduate School, and qualitative social science. It is expected that PhD mentees will take over the ISI by end of the project. All trainees will be supported by one-on-one mentor meetings, using a twinned mentor model whereby senior and junior mentors co-supervise the mentee, which will also build mentorship capacity in local junior mentors. Building on Zambia's deep experience with using ECHO platform to build clinical capacity in HIV, ZENITH students will participate in a monthly research ECHO seminar to share research progress, journal clubs, and mentorship.