On October 31st, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) announced that our application for a national multisite mixed-methods cross-sectional study of gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men’s (gbMSM) health was approved! Dr. Trevor Hart is the Nominated Principal Investigator of this study, which will also conduct and evaluate novel biomedical and sociobehavioural HIV prevention interventions. Our other Principal Investigators are:

• Dr. Joseph Cox, Public Health and Preventive Medicine Physician at the Montreal Public Health Department and Associate Professor in Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Occupational Health at McGill University
• Dr. Gilles Lambert, Scientist at l’Université de Montréal and la Direction de santé publique de l’agence de la santé et des services sociaux de Montréal
• Dr. David Moore, Research Scientist at the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS and Associate Professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia
• Jody Jollimore, Senior Program Manager at the Health Initiative for Men in Vancouver

The funding from this project comes from the CIHR HIV/AIDS Research Initiative, the Canadian Foundation for AIDS Research (CANFAR), and the Ontario HIV Treatment Network (OHTN).

Building on local initiatives and strengths, we will establish a network of decision makers, researchers, clinicians and community members in Canada’s three largest metropolitan areas (Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal). Our Team has the following programmatic goals:

1. Contribute to Canada’s gbMSM HIV and STI prevention initiatives and promote sexual health among gbMSM by addressing critical knowledge gaps in HIV prevention via an innovative, multidisciplinary, multi-site study and the evaluation of prevention interventions.

2. Build research capacity for a pan-Canadian research network on HIV prevention research for gbMSM across Canada, including communities outside of the major cities.

3. Inform and affect stakeholders and decision-makers (e.g., community, clinical, public health) by using an active, bidirectional Knowledge Translation (KT) approach to reinvigorate HIV prevention and to promote the sexual health of gbMSM across Canada.

A huge thank you to all the members of the HIV Prevention Lab who helped make this application a success!