ABSTRACT
Black/African American (Black thereafter) and Hispanic/Latino (Latinx thereafter) communities bear disproportionate burden of HIV infections in the U.S. These communities also tend to be disproportionately affected by social and structural determinants of health that hamper access to and engagement in HIV prevention and care services. Public health research efforts must advance HIV prevention and care through biomedical and structural interventions tailored to the needs of and culturally acceptable for the affected communities.The CDC Minority HIV Research Initiative (MARI) was established in 2003 to build capacity for HIV epidemiologic and prevention research in mostly Black and Latinx communities and among historically underrepresented early-career scientists working in highly affected communities. The MARI program supports the goal of promoting health equity and reducing HIV-related health disparities.From 2007–2020, 11 MARI investigators have developed HIV prevention interventions in highly affected communities. The interventions developed by seven MARI investigators will be discussed. Best practices about the recruitment and engagement of communities of color using evidence-based online recruitment campaigns, establishing community and scientific advisory boards, engaging community members in all stages of HIV research, and integration of mobile technologies to sustain HIV prevention and care interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic will be illustrated. We will also highlight the accomplishments of MARI investigators building successful partnerships with local health departments and community-based organizations to promote disseminations of findings and sustainability of interventions tailored to their communities. Lastly, we describe why initiatives like MARI that support the development of innovative and effective interventions to reduce HIV disparities in communities of color are essential to ending the HIV epidemic in the U.S.Ensuring the communities’ engagement in HIV policy changes and intervention development are crucial to intervention uptake and sustainability. As such, MARI research initiative is filling gaps in how we address HIV in racial/ethnic and sexual minority communities.