The University of Miami AIDS Research Center on Mental Health and HIV/AIDS - Center for HIV & Research in Mental Health (CHARM) - PROJECT SUMMARY – OVERALL This application is to transition the University of Miami (UM) Center for HIV and Research in Mental Health (CHARM) from a Developmental to a Full NIMH AIDS Research Center (ARC), the next phase in the process of successfully establishing the Center, creating infrastructure, and catalyzing and developing multidisciplinary HIV/AIDS mental health (MH) research at our institution. Specific accomplishments during the Developmental period include dramatic growth of externally funded research related to MH and HIV, establishment and continuous development of meaningful community engaged activities at the institution, support of yearly developmental awards, a T32 on HIV/mental health research award related to underrepresented minorities, competition nationally for EHE supplements, increase in the number of new faculty both overall and in terms of diversity, and achievement of outstanding early “return on investments” from mentoring our junior faculty. Our theme is our organizing mission statement, “To promote, develop, and support high-impact, high- quality, community-engaged HIV research addressing mental health and related disparities as a scientific, strategic, and mentoring resource to end the HIV epidemic.” The significant HIV-related mental health disparities facing our region’s diverse populations in combination with our institution’s strengths make UM an ideal setting to establish a research infrastructure that can become a national resource. The proposed organization, structure and distribution of activities of our Cores arises from our mission statement and from iterative growth and focus during the Developmental period, which has created an effective functional Center. Ongoing strategic planning includes continuous guidance from our stakeholders, our Community Advisory Board, our External and Internal Advisory board, and monthly meetings with the other NIMH-funded ARC Directors. The Administrative (Admin) Core, as an organizational hub, provides Center leadership, strategic planning, and coordinates cross-Core activities. The Developmental (Dev) Core awards pilot studies and mentors early-stage investigators and investigators new to HIV/mental health research. The Methods Core provides innovative research design, biostatistical (e.g. multilevel modeling, machine learning, geospatial analysis), data management, and qualitative research expertise and maintains the data elements for the Center’s consent-to-contact databases and a REDCap measures library. The Mental Health Disparities and Community Engagement (MHD-CE) Core houses our community engagement activities and provides expertise and resources to promote culturally competent approaches, tools, and interventions for ethical, multi- level, community-engaged research addressing MH and HIV-related health disparities. The Equitable Implementation Science (EIS) Core, a new core, provides design and implementation science resources and expertise to extend the equitable reach of evidenced-based interventions.
