By Jill Pease
Two new University of Florida College of Public Health and Health Professions projects are focused on developing HIV prevention strategies among women and young adults in Florida, where new HIV infections are among the highest in the nation.
Yiyang Liu, Ph.D., M.P.H., a research assistant professor in the PHHP department of epidemiology, serves as principal investigator and site investigator for the new studies, which are funded by the National Institute of Mental Health.
Last year, Liu received a PHHP Research Innovation Fund grant, a nimble funding mechanism that is designed to fund pilot testing or feasibility studies that place faculty members, particularly early career researchers, in an optimal position to obtain funding from outside agencies. Liu used her Research Innovation Fund grant to create algorithms to extract key HIV risk predictors from electronic health records data, establish new collaborations and provide student research experiences.
She leveraged these activities to successfully compete for an NIH planning grant (R34) as a principal investigator and as a site principal investigator on a developmental research (R21/R33) grant awarded to Liu and collaborators at Florida State University.
“The principal investigator role I had on the PHHP Research Innovation Fund trained me on how to be a P.I.,” Liu said. “In my grant proposal, these experiences were used to highlight my experiences in grant and project management. Results from this pilot were also used in the grant proposal as preliminary results.”
As principal investigator on the new project aimed at preventing HIV infections among women, Liu will use artificial intelligence to build an effective prediction model to identify women who may benefit from HIV testing and the drug pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, which can significantly reduce HIV risk when taken as directed. The long-term goal is to translate this knowledge into the implementation of clinical decision support tools for health care providers in outpatient settings.
“This is a major step toward overcoming the gaps in existing HIV risk prediction algorithms and helping providers identify women for HIV testing and PrEP,” Liu said.
In the second project, Liu and colleagues at the lead institution, FSU, will integrate data science, implementation science and engagement strategies to improve HIV prevention through the development of interventions created in partnership with the target audience: young adults. Liu will focus on the data science component, working closely with the implementation science teams.
“It always excites me to see how my data science work can eventually make a health impact via implementation,” Liu said.