The Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS (CIRA) is New England's only National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)-funded AIDS research center. Launched in 1997 and directed by Trace Kershaw, Department Chair and Susan Dwight Bliss Professor of Public Health (Social and Behavioral Sciences), this supportive and interdisciplinary research center provides opportunities for innovation and collaboration.
If you’re wondering whether an EMPH student can become involved virtually with CIRA, “That is a hard question to answer,” Kershaw said. “It really depends on what they want to do or how to be involved.” He said the center does sponsor many talks; the easiest way to learn about them is to sign up for the CIRA newsletter; contact Elizabeth Cappello to be added to the mailing list.
While CIRA does not directly do research, the opportunities are there for an EMPH student who wishes to become involved in HIV/AIDS research; CIRA has plenty of affiliated research to which it could direct interested students. CIRA also funds an HIV equity internship in conjunction with the Curtis Heaney Memorial Fellowship. Kershaw said that if students are interested in working on research projects, they should identify the researchers of interest and email them.
CIRA’s affiliates come from 11 departments and represent 16 disciplines, allowing CIRA affiliates to receive exposure and training from different methods and theoretical paradigms that can add breadth, complexity, and innovation to the research and scholarship that they do (more than 90% of grants and papers have contributors from three or more disciplines). In addition, there are centers around Yale with synergistic interests that provide additional support and impact to the work that CIRA does.
CIRA has three specific aims:
- To equip HIV researchers and practitioners with research tools to eliminate HIV-related disparities, promote HIV equity, and conduct research grounded in principles of social justice.
- Expand scientific networks and knowledge on health equity related to status-neutral, HIV-related care and its comorbidities of mental health and substance use, focusing on small urban areas, through its robust network of CIRA affiliates (scientists, current and former fellows, trainees, and collaborators).
- Develop the next generation of HIV equity researchers, with an emphasis on reducing both HIV and academic inequities, and expanding CIRA’s role as a major training center for scientists from historically marginalized populations.
Since its inception, CIRA has been affiliated with more than 450 research projects around the globe.
In the next five years, Kershaw said, “We have several new programs focused on issues around HIV equity, implementation science, health services research, and community-engaged research.” CIRA will focus on stimulating and supporting innovative interdisciplinary research that combines behavioral, social, structural, and biomedical approaches to improve HIV equity of status-neutral HIV care (i.e. HIV prevention and treatment services across the care continuum, regardless of one's HIV status) through the support of key research skills shown to improve equity.
In order to accomplish its mission, CIRA is organized into five sections, or cores.
- The Administrative (Admin) Core provides overall scientific and organizational leadership and management to facilitate implementation of CIRA’s mission.
- The Clinical and Health Services Research (CHSR) Core aims to stimulate and support interdisciplinary collaborations that use implementation science and innovative approaches to improve health behaviors and health and mental health outcomes.
- The goals of the Community Research and Implementation (CRI) Core include to provide services that stimulate, promote and advance the conduct of innovative community-based HIV research by CIRA scientists and community research partners.
- The Development (Dev) Core’s purpose is to provide scientific support to facilitate the development of rigorous and impactful domestic and international research consistent with CIRA’s mission, with a focus on implementation science; and to train, mentor, and provide career development guidance to early-career investigators, including pre- and postdoctoral fellows, international trainees, and junior faculty, with emphasis on scholars from underrepresented backgrounds.
- The Interdisciplinary Research Methods (IRM) Core provides centralized expertise and resources in support of quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research design, and the collection, management, and analysis of data, with emphasis in implementation science.