Behavioral, Social, and Implementation Sciences Core

Modified Project Summary/Abstract Section The Behavioral, Social, and Implementation Sciences Core (BSISC) provides robust infrastructure that enables exceptional social and behavioral science to develop, implement, and disseminate effective HIV interventions in support of Overall Aims 2 and 3 of the Third Coast Center for AIDS Research (TC CFAR). Over the last 10 years, BSISC created unprecedented resources in implementation science, capacity for science-practice partnerships with health departments and community organizations, and analytic and technical support for NIH grants and CFAR awards. In addition to faculty at Northwestern University (NU) and the University of Chicago (UC), community partners used BSISC services extensively to support their roles on collaborative HIV research projects and to expand their capacity to stimulate ideas for future applications to the CFAR Developmental Core (DC) and the NIH. In this renewal, the core’s aims build on the many successes of the prior funding periods while adding new research support activities that will accelerate translation. With extensive input through strategic planning and a citywide user survey, BSISC services are designed to ensure that investigators have the resources they need to effectively and rapidly translate behavioral science discoveries into potent interventions, and then implement effective HIV interventions in and with the community to maximize impact over the next 5 years. Expanded services are built on new expertise in innovative trial designs, mixed-methods research, and cost-effectiveness analysis. Increased capacity for training and consultation in implementation research will extend the reach of these tools to real-world practice, and new programs in community engagement will ensure that local priorities drive the direction of future research. BSISC will leverage existing relationships with Getting to Zero Illinois, the Chicago Department of Public Health, and numerous community partners to foster and develop new collaborations. Like the TC CFAR as a whole, BSISC will also draw on the expertise and opportunities brought by new partners, the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) and Rush University (RU), and their extensive networks of collaborators. BSISC will advance its mission through the following aims: 1) provide resources to efficiently translate behavioral and social science findings into interventions that improve HIV prevention and care; 2) support scale up-of evidence-based interventions through consultation and training in implementation science to HIV investigators and their community partners; and 3) build robust and meaningful community-academic partnerships to identify local research priorities and improve dissemination of research findings.