Federal Grant Award Summary

Emory University received a $1,273,269 Project Grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) under the Allergy and Infectious Diseases Research program (CFDA 93.855), awarded June 2, 2026, with a completion date of May 31, 2031. The MISTR+ Study will develop and test low-touch interventions designed to improve HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) initiation, retention, and re-engagement outcomes among telemedicine PrEP (TelePrEP) users in the United States. The project addresses a critical gap in PrEP scale-up by targeting the over 100,000 users of the nation's largest TelePrEP provider, which delivers services at no out-of-pocket cost to patients.

The project will deliver three primary products: (1) development of evidence-based, low-touch interventions derived from existing literature and analysis of TelePrEP electronic records data; (2) rigorous testing of interventions through rapid randomized controlled trials (A/B testing) examining message content and other variables; and (3) machine learning and cost-effectiveness analyses to identify high-performing interventions. Interventions demonstrating positive health outcomes without incremental per-user costs, such as optimized messaging, will be scaled across all TelePrEP users to maximize immediate public health prevention benefits and inform evidence-based telehealth delivery models nationwide.