Exploring integrated reproductive health interventions to reduce STBBIs and HPV-related diseases among WLWH in British Columbia

Women Living with HIV (WLWH) continue to experience heightened vulnerability to STBBIs and HPV- related diseases, including invasive cancers and deaths. Drawing on new linkages and synergies across a diverse, interdisciplinary suite of research programmes, we plan to identify risk factors for HPV, elucidate barriers to STBBI and HPV-associated disease prevention interventions (i.e., HPV self-screening, online STBBI testing, HPV vaccinations) to improve coverage and evaluate the potential of innovative STBBI/HPV screening models, with the aim to inform human-rights based, integrated sexual and reproductive health interventions to promote the sexual and reproductive health equity of WLWH. Our team grant brings together an interdisciplinary and intersectoral team of researchers (e.g., social epidemiologists, sex-and gender-based researchers, biomedical, clinical and qualitative/ethnographers), community partners and knowledge users to develop research capacity and ethical knowledge translation on improving the sexual and reproductive health and rights of WLWH. Through the proposed team grant, we will develop a comprehensive interdisciplinary research and KT platform that would not otherwise exist through a single project/grant initiative. The proposed grant is timely and uniquely placed to evaluate and inform novel integrated STBBI/HPV prevention interventions that will have direct implications for scale-up in BC and other settings, thereby improving the sexual and reproductive health of WLWH in BC and globally.