Caribbean, Central, and South America network for HIV Epidemiology (CCASAnet)
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PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT The Caribbean, Central and South America network for HIV epidemiology (CCASAnet) is an established and productive network within the International epidemiology Databases to Evaluate AIDS (leDEA) program. CCASAnet was created in 2006 during the first leDEA funding cycle and has brought together clinical, statistical, epidemiologic, and informatics resources from HIV clinical care and research sites in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, and Peru, along with a coordinating center in Nashville, USA. Together, the members of the CCASAnet collaboration respond to scientific opportunities arising in the region and across HIV research networks worldwide. The CCASAnet Data Coordinating Center at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VDCC) manages the CCASAnet consortium and works to harmonize and analyze the complex databases generated by participating sites. The VDCC also provides mentoring and education to enhance clinical research and data management capabilities at CCASAnet sites, promote junior researchers, and catalyze ongoing growth of scientific leadership in the region. Over the next five years, CCASAnet will assess inequities in the HIV continuum of care; the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on HIV care delivery; outcomes in vulnerable populations including migrants, those "lost to follow-up," and pregnant women; determinants and prevention of non- communicable diseases; and treatment outcomes in TB patients with and without HIV. We will also characterize psychosocial, behavioral, and non-communicable disease clinical outcomes in adolescents, transgender, and older persons through new prospective cohorts nested in the CCASAnet retrospective clinical cohort. We will continue to develop and apply innovative biostatistics and informatics methods, grow our productive collaborations with other IeDEA regions, and provide leadership in the site assessment, data harmonization, and data sharing initiatives. Through these activities, CCASAnet 4 will help advance both the science of HIV epidemiology and the information science that underpins international research collaboration.
