The Texas Implementation Science (IS) Hub is aligned with the Texas Developmental Center for AIDS Research (D-CFAR) housed out of Baylor, College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. Led by Chris Markham, PhD and Bijal Balasubramanian, MBBS, PhD, the Texas IS Hub is a part of the current 8 IS Hubs funded by the NIH in the Ending the HIV Epidemic in the U.S. plan. The Hub brings a range of expertise in different content areas to their assigned EHE Supplement Projects.
“Last year was our first year as an Implementation Science Hub, so a lot of our time was spent navigating how we could be a good support to our project teams.” said Chris Markham, co-project investigator of the Texas IS Hub. “We had 7 teams all with the focus of behavioral economics. Not only were we able to share our expertise, but we also learned a lot more about behavioral economics across different populations and settings.”
The Texas IS Hub team is planning and developing a capstone event in October 2023 to bring all their project teams together so that they may share their successes, barriers, lessons learned and more. Throughout their funding year, the Hub has also provided one-on-one implementation research (IR) to their local Texas D-CFAR investigators.
“We have collaborated and worked with Texas D-CFAR investigators in the area of community-based pharmacies for PrEP uptake,” continued Markham. “And we have also worked with colleagues in Eswatini looking at stigma reduction approaches to youth living with HIV and adherence to treatment.”
As part of their IS institute, the Texas IS Hub was able to offer a grant writing workshop. This was a four-part workshop series for early and mid-career investigators and included a few Texas D-CFAR members. The workshops focused on guiding participants to successfully write grant applications for NIH or other funding institutes around implementation science. The Hub has a new seminar series planned out for this coming fall which will include the topics: Mechanisms of Implementation Strategies, De-Implementation, Levels of Evidence in Implementation Research, Policy and Implementation Science, and Implementation Outcomes (the Implementation Science Coordination Initiative (ISCI) will send out reminders as they become available. Don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter to receive the information). All the Texas IS Hub seminars are recorded and available for audiences through their website at: https://www.uth.edu/implementation-science/our-work/training/previous-seminars
As the Hub keeps working to expand their resources and expertise in EHE and beyond, they are awaiting final SPH approval for a 15-credit graduate certificate in dissemination and implementation science. The Hub designed the program to not only be offered for graduate students at UTHealth, but also for non-degree seeking students (healthcare providers, researchers for other institutions, practitioners, etc.).
“Our team is very excited as we await final SPH approval for this certificate. The program is a 15-credit certificate using courses that we’re developing specifically for it. There will be two tracks, one is for more research-focused IS while the other is more practice-based IS.” Markham said.
As the NIH has announced the next cycle of funded EHE Supplement Projects, the Texas IS Hub is looking forward to a new project year and to continue providing and building upon expertise, resources, cross-Hub collaborations and much more to end the epidemic.
If you would like to learn more about the Texas IS Hub, visit their website HERE or visit the UTHealth Institute for Implementation Science Twitter page for more events and updates HERE.