Mentoring Patient-Oriented Research on Advances to Optimize Engagement in HIV Care

Project Abstract Dr. Christopoulos is an infectious disease physician and Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of HIV, ID, and Global Medicine at UCSF. Her research over the past ten years has focused on improving engagement in HIV care for underserved urban populations by identifying those at risk for poor engagement, understanding barriers to and facilitators of engagement, and developing interventions to support engagement. She has mentored numerous early career investigators, including pre-doctoral students, post-doctoral fellows, and junior faculty but now seeks the protected time of the K24 award to increase the depth and scope of her mentorship, undertake dedicated mentorship skills training, and grow her program of patient oriented research. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted further the need for rigorous evaluation of the impact of innovations in HIV care delivery to ensure their use does not widen HIV health disparities. In this application, Dr. Christopoulos proposes a comprehensive mentoring, research, and career development plan to promote the equitable delivery of HIV care and treatment in a post-COVID landscape. Leveraging the infrastructure of the CFAR Network of Integrated Clinical Systems (CNICS) and her role as UCSF site PI, the research proposed in this application seeks to investigate the impact of advances in HIV care and treatment, i.e., telehealth, long- acting injectable antiretroviral therapy, on retention and viral suppression. In addition to the resources of CNICS, which include a mentoring core, Dr. Christopoulos will utilize an implementation science R01 on long- acting injectable antiretroviral therapy, training and career resources at UCSF, and a robust network of multidisciplinary collaborators to provide mentees with training opportunities, preliminary data, and platforms on which to build new research. Through the guidance of an experienced senior mentoring team, formal didactics, and mentee feedback, she will augment and formalize her mentoring abilities and approach with additional training in mentoring across differences and supporting under-represented minority (URM) investigators, building an equity focus in her mentoring as well as her research. The K24 is instrumental to achieving her long-term career goals of becoming an international leader on the topic of engagement in HIV care and maximizing the impact of her scientific pursuits by training the next generation of researchers focused on optimizing HIV care engagement.