Ending the HIV Epidemic Steering Committee
In 2019, the U.S. launched the ambitious Ending the HIV Epidemic (EHE) initiative, which aims to reduce HIV incidence by 90% by 2030 by implementing interventions spanning four key pillars:
- Diagnose
- Treat
- Prevent
- Respond
The EHE efforts are focused on 57 jurisdictions where over half of new HIV diagnoses occur each year. The Harvard CFAR, which is based in the high-priority jurisdiction of Suffolk County, has launched an EHE Steering Committee to support local and national EHE efforts. The overarching goal of the EHE Steering Committee is to identify research gaps and facilitate productive collaborations between Harvard CFAR investigators with diverse expertise and interests, local implementation partners (e.g., city and state health departments, community health centers), and community-based organizations that share a vision of developing and implementing strategies to help achieve the goals of the EHE initiative, with the potential to catalyze a future EHE Scientific Working Group.
Leadership:
Kevin Ard, Co-chair, MD is an infectious disease physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Ard serves as the Director of the Sexual Health Clinic at Massachusetts General Hospital, a safety-net clinic providing sexually transmitted infection testing and treatment, HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), and HIV post-exposure prophylaxis. The Sexual Health Clinic collaborates closely with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health on EHE efforts and works with multiple community partners to provide STI and HIV services at four locations within Suffolk County.
Julia Marcus, Co-chair, PhD, MPH is an infectious disease epidemiologist and Associate Professor in the Department of Population Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, and Adjunct Faculty at The Fenway Institute. She has expertise in PrEP implementation research, including as PI for multiple NIH-funded projects.
Drs. Ard and Marcus have both led EHE supplements to the Harvard CFAR, providing them an important perspective on the needs of EHE-funded investigators in the CFAR. They will share responsibility for all EHE Steering Committee strategic planning and activities with support from the Administrative Core.
Activities supported by the EHE Steering Committee:
- Facilitating academic-community partnerships: The EHE Steering Committee will facilitate regular meetings to share EHE priorities and activities, identify research gaps, and match academic and community partners to address unmet EHE research and implementation needs. In addition to standing quarterly meetings, there may be additional meetings strategically timed with EHE requests for applications to foster collaborations in conjunction with funding opportunities.
- Consulting on implementation science: The EHE Steering Committee will collaborate with the Biobehavioral and Community Science Core to develop a strategy and infrastructure for offering implementation science consultation for grant writers and will advertise this service as part of CFAR requests for EHE proposals.
- Building research capacity among community partners: The EHE Steering Committee will develop approaches for strengthening research capacity among community partners, particularly those collaborating on EHE-funded projects with CFAR investigators.