Who comes up with these ideas?
Via CNS News:
(CNSNews.com) – The National Institutes of Health has awarded $251,173 in taxpayer funds to the University of California Los Angeles to use “social-network based intervention” to promote the use of an HIV-prevention drug regimen among “transgender women” in Peru.
“Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is an important new tool for HIV prevention, but is highly dependent on patient adherence,” the grant abstract said. Adherence, it said, is “influenced by individual, social, and structural factors.”
A study conducted in France and Canada shows that Truvada – a pill that combines two AIDS drugs – when taken before and after unprotected sex by gay men proves effective in preventing transmission of the HIV virus. Currently, daily use of Truvada is used to prevent HIV infection in people at high risk for it, the Associated Press reports.
Researchers for the NIH-funded grant will provide Truvada daily to participants for the six-month study period.
“We propose a social network-based intervention to promote PrEP adherence among transgender women (TW) in Lima, Peru,” the grant said. The intervention will take on a three-pronged approach.
First, the project will use formative research, which consists of semi-structured interviews and focus groups.