Johns Hopkins HIV Implementation Science Hub (Hopkins Hub)

The proposed work is for the continuation and expansion of the Hopkins Hub (formerly MACC+ Hub) to support the EHE initiative. The goal of this proposed Regional Consultation Hub is to enhance the technical rigor, capacity, collaborations, and generalizable knowledge among EHE investigators, community and implementing partners and the federal government. This will be achieved through three aims 1) Enhance the technical rigor of implementation science research, build capacity among investigators, and facilitate networking among HIV-related implementation science researchers; 2) Optimize the quality and quantity of generalizable knowledge from HIV-related implementation science research to support the Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative; 3) Advance community-academic partnerships to improve the impact of Ending the HIV Epidemic targeted research. Activities to be conducted through this award include coaching of and resource sharing with EHE awardees; engagement and support to the national coordinating center data and management center, including support for data harmonization; leading our flagship HIV and IS fellowship for training early stage investigators in HIV and implementation science (IS); public launch and updating of the EHE dashboard to highlight findings from the EHE HIV and IS investments; execution of HIV and IS-related meta- science reviews related to EHE, including reviews of implementation outcome measurements and focal areas of EHE funding announcements; and the development of tools and application of said tools to optimize measurement of implementation outcomes across EHE awardees and other NIH-funded researchers. In particular, there is a focus on community-academic partnerships, including curation of tools available to support and assess community engaged research (CEnR) and identification between community and academic partners of shared goals and priorities, and gaps in measures available; we will work in a co-design process with community and academic partners to fill gaps in tools through iterative feedback sessions, dissemination of available tools, and development of new tools when prioritized by the community-academic partners. Our team includes a dynamic and committed core of IS experts and mentors with a track record of leading IS research and providing high quality technical assistance and mentorship in IS.