We asked Niloufar Aran, a BC-CfE research coordinator of the Epidemiology and Population Health Program about her work and how it relates to this year’s World AIDS Day theme of ‘End Inequalities. End AIDS. End Pandemics’
Q.
Tell us about your role and the focus/study of your work?
A.
The Canadian HIV Observational Cohort (CANOC) Collaboration is a large national cohort and is Canada’s first interprovincial collaborative cohort of HIV-positive individuals on ART. This project gives researchers the opportunity to conduct large and detailed analyses of HIV treatment outcomes that would not be possible within individual cohorts and to assess variations in patterns of access to treatment, patient management and treatment outcomes across Canada. CANOC aims to establish a world-class Centre for HIV health services and epidemiologic cohort research that will collect and disseminate essential information to guide HIV management and care. I am the coordinator of this important project, and am based in BC, Canada on the unceded Coast Salish Territories; the traditional lands of the xÊ·məθkwÉ™yÌ“É™m (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and SÉ™lÌ“ÃlwÉ™taɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples.
Q.
What role does HIV play in your work and how does it impact your participants?
A.
The epidemiologic cohort study gathers data from 11 sites across five provinces. All the data gathered for this cohort come from clinics treating people living with HIV in Canada. The research done with the CANOC data aims to improve treatment quality, health outcomes, and engagement with evidence-based programs and services for people living and aging with HIV across Canada, prioritizing approaches to treatment and care that are sensitive to the health needs of key populations affected by HIV.
Q.
The theme of World AIDS Day this year is ‘End Inequalities. End AIDS. End Pandemics’. How do inequalities in HIV care influence your work and are there opportunities to address inequalities to HIV care in your work?
A.
There always exists opportunities to address inequalities within the systems we occupy. The Building More Bridges project is one that started and ended with this aim in mind. This project went directly to community and did the research with Indigenous community experts in Saskatoon and people living with HIV. Through a series of in-person and virtual gatherings, the research team and allies supported community experts in identifying a question important to community that we wanted to explore. We connected with land and honoured ceremony throughout the gatherings and engaged in reciprocal learning. After identifying the research question, we met virtually to go over the results of the analysis, and together write up two manuscripts on the process and the results of the analyses. More information about this project can be found here and here. In this way, CANOC data was used to address community priorities identified by Indigenous peoples living with HIV and using research “in a good way” to support collaborations between community experts, researchers, and allies.