Information Dissemination Core

A central mission of the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center (LSUHSC) Comprehensive Alcohol- HIV/AIDS Research Center (CARC) is to develop interdisciplinary collaborative networks that will impact alcoholand HIV-related knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors by educating the scientific and lay communities on the neurobiological basis and biomedical consequences of alcohol use, the risk factors and biological underpinnings of HIV, and relevant mechanisms that link these conditions. This mission will be instituted within the CARC Information Dissemination Core (ID Core). During current and prior CARC funding periods, we have established extensive partnerships with institutional, local, and national leaders and entities aimed at impacting knowledge, attitudes, and behavior of high-value populations. The activities described in this proposal are organized into three major categories based on the following target populations: (1) those aimed at disseminating information to a community of lay persons with HIV (PWH) and individuals at risk for HIV and/or AUD, (2) those aimed at disseminating information and skills to in-training and practicing health care providers from an interprofessional lens, and (3) those aimed at incorporating CARC researchers (trainees, fellows, and faculty) into innovative research and high-value dissemination activities, thereby facilitating the achievement of our synergistic aims, and simultaneously facilitating information dissemination across research personnel. An additional aim of the ID Core involves focused activities that will facilitate the recruitment and training of meritorious early career scientists into CARC labs that are focused on HIV and alcohol research, foster collaborative multidisciplinary HIV-alcohol research at LSUHSC, and promote the dissemination of HIV/alcohol findings to extramural scientists, including strategic partnerships with other HIV/alcohol centers. The proposed ID Core activities also leverage and reinforce existing partnerships between CARC and institutional initiatives to empirically quantify our impact on knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors toward HIV and AUD with a growing emphasis on educational scholarship.