Our first CAB meeting!

On Tuesday, June 6th we had our first Community Advisory Board (CAB) meeting. We are extremely fortunate to have 11 committed, diverse, insightful, fabulous members. This first meeting allowed us to provide more information about the project to the CAB members, as well as receive their feedback about our interview instrument. It was clear each member put a lot of thought and energy into reviewing the instrument before the meeting, as they each came equipped with brilliant feedback.

It became clear through the members' feedback that we are trying to cover too many topics in our instrument. While it would be great to cover all the topics we want, we need to focus the instrument and make sure we are measuring what we proposed we would. Specifically, individual risk factors for HIV and STIs (sexually transmitted infections), as well as social network characteristics.

The SWEAT research team will now go back and incorporate their suggestions into the instrument, and then resubmit it to CHR (the internal review board at UCSF) for approval. Let's hope that CHR approves all the questions that we want.

Once we gain approval, we will be able to set a launch date, and will then call upon the CAB members to help recruit the initial seeds (those first female sex workers that enroll in the study).