 | Pictured at the opening of the new office of Yale's Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS (CIRA) at YRG CARE in Chennai, India, are (from left) Yale Vice President Linda K. Lorimer; President Richard C. Levin; Dr. Suniti Solomon, director of YRG CARE; and Dr. Michael Merson, director of CIRA. |
While in India (see related story), President Richard C. Levin and a delegation of other top Yale officials formally opened a new office for Yale's Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS (CIRA) housed at YRG CARE, a non-profit organization based in Chennai.
The office will operate three research projects relating to HIV and AIDS throughout India: Project Parivartan, supported by a three-year grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF); a monitoring and evaluation program funded by the Children's Investment Fund Foundation; and a research and training program supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Fogarty International Center.
The goal of Project Parivartan is to reduce HIV prevalence among high-risk populations such as sex workers, truckers and injection drug users through the analysis of structural interventions that focus on altering the context within which individuals engage in health behaviors or make health-related decisions. The project will focus on the four southern and two northeastern states of India with the highest HIV prevalence: Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Manipur and Nagaland.
The Yale team -- led by principal investigator Kim M. Blankenship, CIRA's associate director and associate research scientist in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health (EPH) in the School of Medicine -- will collaborate in Project Parivartan with CARE, an international field relief and development organization. The team will also work with other partners receiving support as part of the BMGF's Avahan: India AIDS Initiative to conduct structural analyses of HIV risk and assess structural interventions for HIV prevention.
The second project housed at the new office is an antiretroviral pilot program being implemented by the Tamil Nadu Care and Support Network, in collaboration with the Tamil Nadu State AIDS Control Society. The program will involve government hospitals, non-governmental and community-based organizations, and networks of individuals living with HIV/AIDS. It will provide comprehensive medical, psychosocial and nutrition services, including antiretroviral therapy, to 500 families with a child infected or affected by HIV/AIDS in three districts in Tamil Nadu. Dr. Michael H. Merson, the Anna M.R. Lauder Professor of Public Health and director of CIRA, is leading a team of investigators affiliated with the Yale center to monitor and evaluate activities for the program.
Nalini Tarakeshwar, associate research scientist in EPH, and a recipient of an NIH Fogarty International Center Career Award, developed the third program, a research and training initiative developed jointly with YRG CARE in India. This program focuses on religious and cultural factors related to HIV secondary prevention and mental health in India. The training will be used to design, implement and evaluate a pilot intervention for promoting HIV secondary prevention and mental health among serodiscordant couples (HIV-positive males and uninfected wives) in India.
T H I S
Researchers developing strategies
for preventing
HIV and AIDS in India
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