We are happy to announce that AFEW International represented by executive director Anke Van Dam became a consultant of an international project “Optimizing HIV prevention portfolios targeting people who inject drugs using dynamic economic modeling” awarded with NIH grant.
As one of the significant contributors AFEW International will act as a liaison to the key networks, organizations, and partners in the countries in the region of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. We will help the project team access data and the best level expertise for undertaking modeling in EECA. As well as we will provide consultations and feedback on the modeling process in the EECA region.
The overarching aim of the project “Optimizing HIV prevention portfolios targeting people who inject drugs using dynamic economic modeling” is to optimize HIV prevention strategies for people who inject drugs (PWID) in 108 countries worldwide using dynamic economic modeling based on multiple large data sources.
The project will:
1) Develop an epidemic model to estimate the impact of HIV prevention portfolios among PWID for every country with available HIV prevalence data among PWID (108 countries), based on data from multiple large systematic reviews.
2) Externally validate the model in 9 key countries with the highest numbers of HIV-positive PWID (including Russia and Ukraine)
3) Develop a user-friendly and web-based multi-platform portal for dissemination of the epidemic economic model and associated data.
The research team of the project consists of:
Natasha Martin, DPhil, Associate Professor, a leading economic infectious disease modeler (University of California);
Steffanie Strathdee, PhD, Professor and a leading epidemiologist focusing on HIV among PWID with 500 publications;
Javier Cepeda, PhD, Assistant Professor, an economic modeler with expertise in cost data collection among PWID;
Peter Vickerman, DPhil, Professor, a leading modeler of HIV transmission among high-risk groups including PWID, MSM and FSWs (the University of Bristol);
Louisa Degenhardt, PhD, Professor, an epidemiologist with over a decade of experience in conducting global systematic reviews on IDU and health harms among PWID (the University of New South Wales);
Sarah Larney, PhD (the UNSW team).
