2016 URBAN ARCH Annual Meeting Highlights

l-r: Tyler Wray, Mark Celio, Patricia Cioe, Chris Kahler (Brown ARCH); Jeffrey Samet & Peggy Doyle

The fifth URBAN ARCH Annual Meeting held April 5-6, 2016 brought together approximately 60 investigators, staff, Scientific Advisory Panel members, and other collaborators to discuss the progress and future direction of the URBAN ARCH Consortium. The meeting began on April 5th with a discussion about several Uganda ARCH and Russia ARCH papers and analyses. On that afternoon, URBAN ARCH welcomed Brown University ARCH researchers who presented on electronic health HIV/alcohol interventions to generate ideas for cross-CHAART collaborations. Topics discussed included the use of brief motivational interviewing using videoconferencing, HIV self-testing kits with electronic monitoring, and interactive text messaging.

Wednesday morning began with a welcome and introduction by Jeffrey Samet, PI of the URBAN ARCH Consortium followed by Kendall Bryant, the Consortium’s NIAAA Scientific Collaborator, who spoke about the importance of HIV/alcohol research and the future of the NIAAA CHAART initiative. Presentations by the cores and cohorts followed, with a focus on progress, challenges, results, and next steps. The meeting continued Wednesday afternoon with presentations on CFAR and URBAN ARCH collaborative opportunities and two career development award proposals. Karsten Lunze, MD/DrPH, presented on his [now funded!] K99 R00 application addressing stigma and health care among HIV-infected Russians who inject drugs, and Jennifer Wagman, PhD on her funded K01 on alcohol, intimate partner violence, and HIV among Ugandan women. Finally, in a closed session the Scientific Advisory Panel offered feedback and advice to the URBAN ARCH PIs.

l-r: Judith Hahn, Richard Saitz, Debbie Cheng, Jeffrey Samet, Matthew Freiberg (URBAN ARCH PIs); Bulat Idrisov & Natalia Gnatienko

The URBAN ARCH Annual Meeting once again provided important face-to-face time for the multi-institutional URBAN ARCH investigators and staff to discuss projects together as a consortium. According to results from our evaluation, meeting participants noted several positive takeaways, including 1) Networking & collaboration, 2) Gaining knowledge about our research studies & future directions in the field of HIV and alcohol, and 3) Learning more about the synergy & cooperative nature of the URBAN ARCH Consortium as a whole. We look forward to planning new and creative ways to engage potential collaborators at our next Annual Meeting. Stay tuned…

You can access our Annual Meeting photos, presentations, and agenda by clicking here. Please contact Carly Bridden for the password to gain access to the presentations.