Psychosocial Co-morbidities of HIV Prevention and Treatment Program

Overview

This program supports research on the impact of HIV-related psychosocial co-morbidities, including mental health, violence, and trauma, on HIV prevention and treatment outcomes. Research is encouraged that aims to understand the complex interplay among these psychosocial comorbidities, their impact on HIV prevention and treatment, and how to best prevent or address these factors to improve HIV-related outcomes. Mental health is broadly defined, and may include, but is not limited to, depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, or severe mental illness. Stressful or traumatic life experiences may include childhood maltreatment (e.g., child sexual or physical abuse, child neglect), intimate partner violence, non-partner sexual assault, community violence, or war-related trauma.

Areas of Emphasis

• Studies to improve our understanding of the complex interplay between mental health, violence, trauma, and other psychosocial comorbidities commonly associated with HIV, and to characterize the biological, behavioral, emotional, cognitive, and social pathways through which these factors lead to poor HIV-related prevention and treatment outcomes, with the goal of identifying modifiable intervention targets.
• Studies to better understand the impact of relationship-related factors on HIV prevention and treatment, and to incorporate relationship-related factors into HIV prevention and treatment interventions.
• Intervention research to develop and test novel interventions that integrate mental health or trauma treatment with HIV prevention or HIV treatment-related interventions.
• Implementation research to understand the barriers and facilitators to implementing mental health, trauma, and related interventions, to develop implementation strategies for these interventions, to study cost and cost-effectiveness, and to scale up and sustain these interventions.

Contact

Teri Senn, Ph.D.
301-761-7852, teri.senn@nih.gov