Strategies and Best Practices for Recruitment and Retention of Cisgender & Transgender Women in HIV Clinical Trials

The Centers for Disease Control reports nearly one in four people living with HIV in the United States is female. Federal funding has been allocated to increase awareness and inclusion of women in clinical trials, yet female participants are often underrepresented in HIV research.

Transgender women also encounter a high prevalence of HIV infection, but have not sufficiently been included in clinical trials. The National HIV AIDS Strategy states that although progress has been made in recent years the Federal government "must remain vigilant in increasing knowledge and appropriate support and interventions" for transgender communities.

The webinar featured:

• Annet Davis, RN, MSW, CCRC, Project Director, at University of Pennsylvania’s HIV Prevention Research Division. She will speak to her success in engaging women with transgender experiences for HVTN 505, a Phase 2b HIV vaccine trial.
• Rondalya DeShields, RN, MSN, Program Manager for the Infectious Disease Practice at Rutgers, New Jersey Medical School. She will speak on recruiting high risk women for HPTN 069, also known as NEXT-PrEP, a Phase 2 trial of maraviroc as PrEP.

These studies demonstrate some of the unique considerations that are necessary for successfully engaging cisgender and transgender women in HIV research.

The Women’s HIV Research Collaborative (WHRC), a working group of the Legacy Project, provides culturally appropriate leadership in development, implementation and dissemination of information about HIV research addressing the needs of women and girls in the United States. The WHRC works to raise the visibility of issues related to HIV in women in the US and promotes awareness of scientific research to women in disproportionately impacted communities.