# Simulation Modeling to Understand and Address HIV Disparities in Racial, Ethnic, and Sexual Minority Populations

> **NIH NIH R01** · NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY · 2022 · $400,801

## Abstract

Project Summary
Racial, ethnic, and sexual minority populations are disproportionately impacted by infectious disease,
particularly HIV. Individuals at the intersection of multiple of these marginalized identities are even more likely
to be impacted by HIV – especially Black and Hispanic men who have sex with men. While there is growing
evidence that the day-to-day life of racial and sexual minorities differs from majority populations, there is a
limited understanding of how differences in neighborhoods, differences in places where time is spent, and
differences in the kinds of people connected with may impact disease spread and fuel disparities. Moreover,
there is even less comprehensive understanding of how public health strategies could be refined to specifically
reduce health disparities. Simulation models that accurately replicate population dynamics by simulating the
movement and interaction of millions of individuals allow researchers a toolbox to understand the underlying
dynamics of disease transmission and identify potential targets for intervention. This project joins two
complementary teams of researchers in Chicago to build chiSTIG, a simulation model specifically derived to
understand the social contextual dynamics which lead to disparities in HIV. The first team, at Northwestern
University, have been funded by the NIH to capture rich data on the social systems and physical spaces
inhabited by racial and sexual minorities, and have utilized these data to understand how the social and sexual
isolation of young Black men who have sex with men (BMSM) in Chicago drives disparities in HIV. The second
team, at the University of Chicago/Argonne National Laboratory, have built chiSIM, an extraordinarily powerful
agent-based modeling (ABM) framework that simulates the interaction of 2.9 million Chicagoans across 1.2
million geo-located places to understand disease outbreaks and guide intervention development. chiSIM is a
flexible system that has been used to understand prevention strategies for a number of infectious diseases.
We propose to utilize several existing rich empirical datasets to build a chiSIM-derived model, chiSTIG, so that
it might serve as a counterfactual laboratory able to test competing hypotheses regarding the etiology of
infectious disease inequities in HIV for sexual minorities, specifically Black and Hispanic MSM, and potential
routes for intervention. Specifically, the framework will be extended through the integration of detailed data on
the physical and online third places utilized by and the social and sexual interactions of racially diverse MSM in
Chicago.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10320072
- **Project number:** 5R01MD014703-03
- **Recipient organization:** NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Michelle Birkett
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $400,801
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2020-05-02 → 2023-12-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10320072

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10320072, Simulation Modeling to Understand and Address HIV Disparities in Racial, Ethnic, and Sexual Minority Populations (5R01MD014703-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10320072. Licensed CC0.

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