160066 Evaluating the impact of an academic-community research consortium on HIV testing and research capacity

Tuesday, November 6, 2007: 5:15 PM

Audrey K. Bangi, PhD, MPH , UCSF Center for AIDS Prevention Studies, San Francisco, CA
Christian Alvez , Asian and Pacific Islander American Health Forum, San Francisco, CA
Frank Wong, PHD , Dept of International Health -- NHS, Georgetown university, Washington, DC, DC
Tri Do, MD, MPH , UCSF Center for AIDS Prevention Studies, San Francisco, CA
Community-university partnerships can meet the different priorities of each party involved. Alliances formed between community-based organizations (CBOs) and university-based evaluators/researchers help develop more sophisticated evaluation plans, collect more representative research data, and enhance understanding of the needs of marginalized populations. At the same time, researchers recognize that in order to conduct research that is truly representative of the population of interest, they must venture outside of traditional settings and observe and interact with community members. As these collaborations strive to be reciprocal and mutually beneficial, they can also be fraught with challenges.

This presentation will describe collaborative partnerships between seven CBOs, two academic partners, and a national capacity building agency. These partnerships have resulted in the formation of a five-region consortium known as the Men of Asia and the Pacific Testing for HIV (MATH) Study. This consortium seeks to investigate the HIV prevalence and the sociocultural and behavioral correlates of infection among 1,600 multilingual Asian and Pacific Islander men who have sex with men in the U.S. The activities include formal process and outcome evaluations designed to examine the consortium model's ability to improve the HIV testing and research capacities of community partners. In tracing the history of this effort, we will discuss the implementation of mixed methods to evaluate the consortium's impact (e.g., organizational assessments, monitoring activities, key informant interviews), describe challenges faced in various phases of this evaluation/research project, offer suggestions for overcoming such obstacles, and use evaluation feedback to help the consortium achieve its goals.

Learning Objectives:
1. To describe a novel research-practice model of collaborative community-based research that both increases service program capacity and improves sampling of marginalized populations for scientific research. 2. To articulate the benefits and challenges encountered within community-researcher partnerships 3. To understand the process and significance of evaluating community-based research collaborations in general and specifically in API communities 4. To apply the principles and methods of evaluation to improve the processes and outcomes of community-based research

Keywords: Community Collaboration, Evaluation

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No
Any institutionally-contracted trials related to this submission?

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.