CIHR Centre for REACH in HIV/AIDS

The CIHR Centre for REACH (Research Evidence into Action for Community Health) in HIV/AIDS is a national collaborative network of over 125 researchers, policy makers, service providers, front-line community agencies and people living with HIV. REACH 2.0 will create an innovative, virtual, nation-wide laboratory for intervention research, participatory evaluation and applied program science in HIV, other STIs and hepatitis C (HCV). REACH 2.0 will provide infrastructure support for interprofessional population-based and cross-cutting research teams that will work along the prevention, engagement and treatment cascade to: 1) Identify existing efficacious interventions; 2) Provide evaluation support for front-line organizations; 3) Support research to fill gaps in the implementation of efficacious interventions; 4) Engage in applied program science (an emerging field of scientific inquiry developed to accelerate the impact of research on individual and population health) to scale up interventions for sustained impacts; 5) Create a training/capacity building program in participatory evaluation and program science for new investigators and mid-career planners, evaluators, service providers and researchers; 6) Collaborate with other funded centres to make more effective use of resources. Our research program will: address the syndemic factors that contribute to risk and poor health outcomes; improve the accessibility, effectiveness and sustainability of evidence-based behavioural, social, structural, biomedical and medical interventions; and enhance the health of populations most affected by HIV, STIs and HCV (men who have sex with men, African, Caribbean and Black communities, transgender and transsexual people, Indigenous people and people who use drugs). Our work will provide information to guide program planning and resource allocation; it has the potential to reduce the burden of HIV, STIs and HCV on individuals and the health care system.