Preventing AIDS: Community-Science Collaborations

Learn how to create professional collaboration between HIV/AIDS researchers and community organizations for the benefit of all! This book is designed to help frontline prevention organizations answer two questions that are of utmost importance. First, how effective are their services; and second, can their work be improved? The absence of rigorous evaluation is a barrier to stable funding for community organizations, and the strategies in Preventing AIDS: Community-Science Collaborations can help overcome that barrier. The book is a guide to successful cooperative efforts between researchers and community-based organizations. The information it presents will help community-based programs acquire detailed, timely information on program effectiveness and outcomes. It also provides researchers with methods for accessing hard-to-reach or hidden HIV high-risk groups. Handy tables and figures make important data easy to access and understand. In Preventing AIDS: Community-Science Collaborations, you’ll learn about the difficult but critically important collaboration between community organizations who do frontline prevention work and university scientists who evaluate the effectiveness of that work. The book describes the community-researcher equal partner collaboration (CREPC) model for community-based collaborative research. In addition, it examines six unique efforts to prevent the spread of AIDS among high-risk populations, such as prostitutes, injection drug users, impoverished pregnant women, migrant workers, transgendered persons, and prison inmates. The case studies in Preventing AIDS: Community-Science Collaborations describe the frustrations of outreach workers and counselors who suddenly must help design a survey they fear will be intrusive, and the parallel problems faced by scientists who are told that their traditional measures mean little to outreach workers. Preventing AIDS: Community-Science Collaborations presents funders’ perspectives on collaborative AIDS research and examines the collaborative and funding aspects of: the CAL-PEP prevention programs for drug injectors and sex workers efforts to promote HIV prevention for migrant farm workers and evaluate those efforts’ effectiveness the ongoing collaboration between The Center for AIDS Prevention Studies (University of California, San Francisco), Centerforce (a statewide nonprofit agency providing services and advocacy to prisoners and their families), and San Quentin State Prison the effort of the Los Angeles County HIV Epidemiology Program and three community-based organizations, which collaborate to provide culturally appropriate outreach and HIV education/prevention services to transgendered individuals of various ethnic origins San Francisco’s PHREDA project and the way its creators collaborated to better understand and serve high-risk women The U-Find-Out (UFO) Study, funded by the Universitywide AIDS Research Program of the State of California

Table of Contents:
About the Editors Contributors Preface Chapter 1. Introduction to Community-Science Collaboration: Equal Partners in Investigation (Benjamin P. Bowser and Shiraz I. Mishra) Collaboration CREPC Chapter 2. Collaborative AIDS Research: A Funder’s Perspective (Bart K. Aoki, Roger K. Myrick, George F. Lemp, and Steve Truax) The Values of Collaborative Research Challenges to Community Collaboration and HIV Prevention Research Opportunities Offered by Collaborative HIV Prevention Research Funding for Community Research on AIDS: UARP Conclusion Chapter 3. Preventing AIDS Among Injectors and Sex Workers (Gloria Lockett, Carla Dillard-Smith, and Benjamin P. Bowser) Beginning of Collaboration Methods Results and Collaborative Findings Conclusion Chapter 4. Collaborative Research Toward HIV Prevention Among Migrant Farmworkers (Shiraz I. Mishra, Fernando Sanudo, and Ross F. Conner) The Collaboration The Study Research Findings Conclusion: Lessons Learned Appendix: Recruitment Criteria and Sample Size of Farmworkers Chapter 5. A Health Promotion Intervention for Prison Inmates with HIV (Barry Zack, Olga Grinstead, and Bonnie Faigeles) Introduction Justification Methods Evaluation Plan (Research Design) Results Discussion Chapter 6. The Los Angeles Transgender Health Study: Creating a Research and Community Collaboration (Cathy J. Reback and Paul Simon) Introduction Study Objectives The Collaboration Team Study Design The Study Findings Future Analyses Benefits and Challenges of Collaboration Chapter 7. Critical Collaborations in Serving High-Risk Women: The PHREDA Project (Geraldine Oliva, Jennifer Rienks, and Lisa Netherland) Background The Three Phases of PHREDA Benefits and Challenges of Collaboration Challenges to Research Conclusion Chapter 8. The Challenges and Rewards of Collaborative Research: The UFO Study (Kristen Ochoa, Rachel McLean, Heather Edney-Meschery, Dante Brimer, and Andrew Moss) A Typical Day in the UFO Study Introduction Doing Research Differently The Study Beginning in the Middle The Community Collaborator’s Perspective The Santa Cruz Needle Exchange The Peer Interviewer/Counselor Perspective The Researcher’s Perspective Where We Are Now Chapter 9. Synthesis of Case Studies and Service Providers’ Reactions (Benjamin P. Bowser and Lisa M. Krieger) Part I: Meta-Analysis of Case Studies Part II: Assessing CREPC Chapter 10. Conclusion (Benjamin P. Bowser, Shiraz I. Mishra, Cathy J. Reback, and George F. Lemp) The Challenge Business As Usual New Business: Grounded Research and Services Equal Partner Collaboration Final Word: This Is Only a Beginning Index Reference Notes Included

About the Author :
R Dennis Shelby, Benjamin Bowser, Shiraz Mishra, Cathy Reback