About AARC – History and Aims

Through a partnership between the UCSF Center for AIDS Prevention Studies (CAPS) and the AIDS Project East Bay (APEB), a stable, well-respected community-based organization in Oakland, CA (a community heavily impacted by STI/HIV and the first city to declare a state of emergency due to the high incidence of HIV/AIDS among African Americans), the consortium of researchers and community partners will develop strong, long-term relationships that bridge the gap between research and communities by developing trainings and forums to build the capacity of research partners to engage in community-involved research, leveraging existing electronic infrastructure to build support mechanisms for community-involved research, and seeding the next generation of STI/HIV research. The primary aims of the AARC are to:

• Develop a research consortium of academic researchers, CBO researchers, and community researchers to identify significant research questions, and design, implement and disseminate appropriate and scientifically rigorous research projects that address STI/HIV health disparities in the African American community;

• Increase the capacity of the members of the research consortium to participate in community collaborative research projects through relationship building activities, specialized trainings, and forums;

• Develop an electronic infrastructure to support, grow and ensure sustainability of the consortium and activities by archiving consortium trainings and forums, facilitating communication among consortium members, and providing a forum for support and problem-solving among the subgroups of the consortium; and

• Stimulate and develop innovative research by providing funding to conduct pilot research that will yield data for collaborative presentations at national conferences and provide preliminary data for use by academic and CBO researchers when submitting future R01 grant proposals to NIH.

The AARC has held consistent meetings since Fall of 2010, has over 50 members and considers health disparities among African Americans (in prevention and treatment) as a high priority. The AARC currently is development of a research agenda for Alameda county which seeks to address the question: “What are the primary drivers involved the AIDS epidemic in Alameda county and how do we address them?”