# Health Education and Community Core (HECC)

> **NIH NIH P01** · HARVARD UNIVERSITY D/B/A HARVARD SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH · 2020 · $573,322

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
Meaningful community engagement in HIV research supports the equitable collaborations between
researchers, study participants, and the community. It brings together the theoretical and methodological
expertise of academics and researchers, with the expertise of participants’ lived experiences and cultural- and
context-rich perspectives, an orientation that has gained increasing credibility in addressing complex health
and social problems. While the existence of Community Advisory Boards (CABs) in HIV research has been
well-established, their contribution to the research process has typically been relegated to reviewing study
materials and disseminating study findings. There is an unmet need for infrastructure and processes that
ensure the meaningful inclusion and integration of community members and other stakeholders throughout all
stages of the research process. A lack of meaningful community engagement has the potential to undermine
not only effective study design and study procedures, but also the ability of findings to be implemented more
broadly in the affected communities researchers ultimately seek to serve and benefit. As the PHACS Network
has grown and matured over the past 14 years, so have the membership and scope of its CAB (established in
2008) and Young Adult CAB (established in 2013). They have provided vital input that has created new study
questions, improved study procedures, and created more effective and innovative ways to disseminate
findings. In 2013, an innovative multidisciplinary Health Education and Communication Committee was formed,
comprised of CAB and YACAB members, clinical site staff, health educators, researchers, and investigators.
This committee has been a model in PHACS for the integration of community engagement into research
processes and has provided critical insights as PHACS has encountered unforeseen barriers to long-term
study retention and data collection. Additionally, it has produced a wide array of innovative, community-driven
health education resources, including an award-winning short documentary about perinatal HIV, a comic book
series on maternal disclosure, whiteboard videos explaining informed consent and study procedures, and a
web portal for young adult participants. To support the expanding scope of work and domains of interest in
PHACS 2020, the innovative Health Education and Community Core (HECC) will formalize and expand
these existing structures through targeted services that support the Research Projects, Emerging Research
Pilots, and Cores and promote meaningful collaboration among researchers, clinical site staff, and CAB and
YACAB members at all stages of the research process: when setting research priorities, crafting research
questions, collecting data, analyzing and interpreting data. The HECC will also serve as an “innovation
incubator” for novel efforts to communicate PHACS’ findings to participants and the community, thus modeling
a more broadly adopt...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10065447
- **Project number:** 1P01HD103133-01
- **Recipient organization:** HARVARD UNIVERSITY D/B/A HARVARD SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH
- **Principal Investigator:** Claire Amanda Berman
- **Activity code:** P01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $573,322
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2020-09-18 → 2025-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10065447

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10065447, Health Education and Community Core (HECC) (1P01HD103133-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10065447. Licensed CC0.

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