Table 3:

Barriers and facilitators to sustaining efforts of diversifying the field of HIV/AIDS

Barriers to sustaining efforts of diversifying the field of HIV/AIDS
Racial/ethnic minorities are disproportionately impacted by financial pressures	“And the issue of that, I think is important to consider her in that as well because you can get funding for PhDs much more easily than for Masters. And so, coming from a disadvantaged background, not having family members who are likely to help her pay for her Masters, I think is scaring her away from some of the high, the more prestigious and overpriced Masters programs.” Mentor 115
Systemic racism and discrimination	“and all of that is compounded if at every turn you’re facing a system that is not set up for you, right? Implicit bias and, you know, explicit problems.” Mentor 116
Lack of social capital	“Resources. That’s one of the biggest things, resources. Not just in the sense of financial resources, just the manpower, the connections to get there. How do you figure it out? How do you get people interested in taking a look at people in rural and small towns like mine? That’s one of the biggest things is like we exist but it’s kind of hard for other people to see that we exist because we’re not right in front of them.” Scholar 109
Lack of research infrastructure in HBCU or MSI	“One of the gaps that at least we’ve seen is that there are a number of institutions across the country at which if you don’t have access to research that would give you a sense of whether it’s something you like... And so I think in particular for underrepresented students at HBCUs or minority-serving institutions, these are examples of schools that have this type of gap in their student experience.” Program Leadership 123
Pay disparities for Infectious Disease compared to other specialties/ cost of education debt in combination with potential earnings
Facilitators to sustaining efforts of diversifying the field of HIV/AIDS
Changing CFAR’s reach to include early access to mentored research experiences to trainees below the faculty level	“I think the things that will facilitate it or the fact that… one of [the CFAR’s] prior responsibilities is to identify and support and mentor the next generation of HIV scientists, but that’s traditionally been at the assistant professor of faculty level, we call early-stage investigators. But I think the thing that facilitates it across the CFAR Network is we’re using the same infrastructure to address and to create these learning opportunities, these training opportunities for scholars at a much earlier stage in their academic progression again at the high school and undergraduate and graduate levels before they get to the level of being a faculty member.” Program Leadership 126
Building meaningful connections with Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Minority Serving Institutions	“One is to have a presence. You have to go there. Two is that it needs to be sustained.” Program Leadership 124
Sustained faculty engagement	“you need faculty who are going to make sure that program, institutional knowledge, the feedback we get from the evaluations every year is taken into account, implemented and used for positive reinforcement changes within the program.” Program Leadership 124
Sustained CDEIPI funding	“But the bottom line is we’re capped at the number of scholars we have, because that’s how much money they gave us through the supplements... So finding other funding mechanisms that allow us to bring in more students with this interest I think is what we need.” Program Leadership 124