Drug Abuse, Risky Decision Making and HIV/AIDS (R21)

-Purpose. This program announcement is intended to stimulate exploratory and developmental research that will increase understanding of how drugs of abuse or processes of addiction influence decisions about high risk sexual behavior, thereby enhancing vulnerability for acquiring or transmitting HIV. Research supported by this announcement will emphasize interdisciplinary studies that incorporate approaches from psychology, economics, anthropology, sociology, decision sciences, neuroscience and computational modeling. Hypothesis driven research and modeling approaches that can guide empirical testing are encouraged. The study of decisions to engage in risky sexual behavior must be clearly the central focus of the posposed research. -Mechanism of Support. This FOA will use the NIH Exploratory/Developmental (R21) grant mechanism and runs in parallel with FOAs of identical scientific scope, PA-07-324 that solicits applications under the R01 and PA-07-326 that solicits applications under the R03 mechanism. -Funds Available and Anticipated Number of Awards. The estimated amount of funds available for support projects appropriate for this FOA is $2,000,000 for fiscal year 2007. Given the range of budgets among the mechanisms supported by these three announcements it is estimated that as few as five, and as many as 25, awards could be made. A reasonable estimate would be 10-12 grants supported.