A mentored hands-on training model for scaling up implementation and intervention research in India: "connecting the dots".

Despite the high burden of mental disorders in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), less than 25% of those in need have access to appropriate services, in part due to a scarcity of locally relevant, evidence-based interventions and models of care. To address this gap, researchers from India and the United States and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) collaboratively developed a "Grantathon" model to provide mentored research training to 24 new principal investigators (PIs). This included a week-long didactic training, a customized web-based data entry/analysis system and a National Coordination Unit (NCU) to support PIs and track process objectives. Outcome objectives were assessed via scholarly output including publications, awards received and subsequent grants that were leveraged. Multiple mentorship strategies including collaborative problem-solving approaches were used to foster single-centre and multicentre research. Flexible, approachable and engaged support from mentors helped PIs overcome research barriers, and the NCU addressed local policy and day-to-day challenges through informal monthly review meetings. Bi-annual formal review presentations by all PIs continued through the COVID-19 pandemic, enabling interim results reporting and scientific review, also serving to reinforce accountability. To date, more than 33 publications, 47 scientific presentations, 12 awards, two measurement tools, five intervention manuals and eight research grants have been generated in an open-access environment. The Grantathon is a successful model for building research capacity and improving mental health research in India that could be adopted for use in other LMICs.

Community-engaged Processes for Restarting Federally Funded Research in a Community-based Organization during the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic.

BACKGROUND: Birmingham AIDS Outreach (BAO) is one of three study sites partnering with the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health (Pitt Public Health) for a National Institutes of Health-funded randomized controlled trial on a financial management intervention for people with HIV who are experiencing homelessness or housing instability. After the onset of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in March 2020, the study team used a community-engaged approach to adapt research protocols at this site. We sought to describe a community-engaged approach to restarting National Institutes of Health-funded research during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: Partners at Pitt Public Health and BAO developed a set of agency-wide COVID-19 policies and procedures for BAO organized around Rhodes' critical elements of community engagement. CONCLUSIONS: The challenges presented by COVID-19 in the research sector have provided an opportunity to reevaluate study activities and increase the extent to which research is conducted in a community-centered manner.

Toward a New Framework for Equity in Epidemic Allocations: Implications of HIV-Prevention-Allocation Misalignment

Social stigma inhibits provision and uptake of HIV prevention and care;experiences and anticipation of stigma in health care settings are associated with lower rates of HIV testing, preexposure prophylaxis uptake, retention in care, and antiretroviral therapy adherence. [...]relying solely on biomedical HIV prevention for young Black and Latinx gay and bisexual men and transwomen will not constitute a sufficient response to their needs. In response, local researchers collaborated with local sexual and gender minority youths of color to develop, implement, and evaluate a multilevel HIV-prevention and care intervention.3 The Pennsylvania Department of Health and the state's HIV Planning Group, whose composition has robustly included most-at-risk populations empowered to identify priority populations and recommend resource allocations, supported and promoted the project for statewide scale-up. Emerging research incorporating wraparound clinical harm reduction4 and intersectional stigma reduction5 into biomedical HIV prevention shows promise. Because of their complexity, such interventions are difficult to operationalize, field, and consolidate into cost-per-person metrics;for these reasons, multilevel, social determinants-based interventions are excluded from allocation models provided. The proposed EqEA framework may help achieve Ending the HIV Epidemic endpoints and offers insights for other infectious diseases, such as directing COVID-19 prevention resources to minority communities wherein SARSCoV-2 is exacting a disproportionately lethal toll and federal aid formulas for hospitals have large-scale racial biases.7 Adopting equitable allocation strategies will ensure that resources do not remain woefully misaligned and our systems do not exacerbate the welldefined shortcomings of decades of efforts. >4jPH CORRESPONDENCE Correspondence should be sent to M. Reuel Friedman, PhD, PO Box 7319, Pittsburgh, PA 15213 (e-mail: mrf9@pitt.edu).

A Compassionate Framework for Reducing Harm in Public Health Higher Education: Implications for the COVID-19 Pandemic

We believe a harm reduction framework offers guidance for managing the student-teacher relationship in pandemic situations. This commentary defines the six principles of harm reduction (humanism, pragmatism, individualism, autonomy, incrementalism, and accountability without termination) and describes how these principles can be applied within the public health higher educational system in the COVID-19 era. The key points are intended to stimulate thought and discussion about how to balance general uncertainty, concerns about what is best for population and personal health, the tensions between collectivism and individualism, and our commitment to training and protecting the health of the next generation of public health professionals. We recommend that educators, in public health and other higher education settings, use the harm reduction principles to guide their interactions with students and to build more compassionate and collectivist communities that allow people to learn and thrive.