# CHAMPS: A randomized trial of a Community Health Worker intervention for persons living with HIV in two high priority settings

> **NIH NIH R01** · COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY HEALTH SCIENCES · 2022 · $692,880

## Abstract

Despite efforts to achieve UNAIDS 95-95-95 targets, marked deficits remain in HIV testing, antiretroviral
therapy (ART) adherence, and viral suppression among a growing number of persons living with HIV (PLWH).
Gaps in HIV treatment success are particularly pronounced in the United States (US) South and Northeast,
specifically, Alabama (AL) and New York City (NYC), the two high priority settings for our study. These
suboptimal HIV-related health outcomes occur at a time when clinicians have limited time and the US
healthcare system remains fragmented, exacerbating the challenges inherent in the lives of poor or stigmatized
groups, such as PLWH. Therefore, the development and evaluation of interventions using a resource-savvy
cadre of community health workers (CHW) holds promise for addressing these challenges. Yet, gaps exist in
the CHW literature, and research is needed to bring CHW interventions to scale and to ameliorate the large
gaps in the US HIV Care Continuum, particularly in Ending the HIV Epidemic (EHE) priority locations. In
response, our highly experienced study team will address limitations in current research focused on CHW
interventions to improve viral suppression and ART adherence. We propose to build on our strong preliminary
data and directly respond to RFA-NR-20-002 by strengthening our CHW intervention, Birmingham Access to
Care (BA2C), through the use of our existing mobile health (mHealth) approach, WiseApp. The literature and
our preliminary work support the scientific premise that the addition of WiseApp to the CHW intervention
guided by a rigorous theoretical model of supportive accountability will allow PLWH to be better able to self-
manage their ART regimens while CHW monitor their ART adherence in real-time. This will ultimately lead to
an improvement in viral suppression and ART adherence. The proposed study blends the strengths of the
BA2C and WiseApp interventions to test a rigorous and reproducible CHW intervention, Community Health
Workers And MHealth to ImProve Viral Suppression (CHAMPS), to improve viral suppression and ART
adherence. The proposed study will test the intervention’s clinical efficacy and assess implementation factors
through the following specific aims with virally unsuppressed adult PLWH (n=150 in AL and 150 in NYC): 1
Conduct a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to assess the efficacy and sustainability of CHAMPS on viral
suppression (primary outcome) and ART adherence (secondary outcome) compared to the standard of care
(standard of care, control group) over 6 and 12 months. 2) Identify mediators (self-efficacy, motivation
expectancies, self-regulation skills, HIV-related stigma) and moderators (depression, anxiety, substance use)
of CHAMPS on study outcomes. 3) Guided by the Reach Effectiveness Adoption Implementation Maintenance
(RE-AIM) framework, identify multi-level factors associated with successful implementation of CHAMPS to
inform future implementation and scale-up of CHAMPS. Finding...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10427397
- **Project number:** 5R01NR019758-03
- **Recipient organization:** COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY HEALTH SCIENCES
- **Principal Investigator:** David S. Batey
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $692,880
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2020-09-25 → 2024-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10427397

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10427397, CHAMPS: A randomized trial of a Community Health Worker intervention for persons living with HIV in two high priority settings (5R01NR019758-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10427397. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*