Federal Project Grant Award Summary

Research Triangle Institute (RTI International) received a $613,917 project grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) under the Drug Use and Addiction Research Programs (CFDA 93.279), awarded May 1, 2026, with completion targeted for February 28, 2030. The grant supports an implementation science study to estimate county-level HIV burden and vulnerability among people who inject drugs (PWID) across the United States and identify organizational and county characteristics that enhance HIV prevention and treatment service provision at community-based programs serving this population. RTI will employ unsupervised machine learning methodologies to create dynamic, county-year profiles of HIV burden and vulnerability over time, addressing previous methodological gaps in understanding where HIV prevention and treatment services are optimally positioned for impact.

The research will integrate county-level community-based program survey data with HIV burden profiles to establish a dataset for spatiotemporal and longitudinal modeling, guided by the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research. This work will generate actionable information to inform local and state responses for scaling up evidence-based HIV prevention and treatment services at community-based programs within different contexts, directly supporting NIDA's priority to expand HIV prevention and treatment access for underserved populations and contributing toward the national goal of ending the HIV epidemic among people who use drugs.