The HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies (P30-MH43520) at the New York State Psychiatric Institute and Columbia University was established in 1987 under the leadership of Anke A. Ehrhardt, PhD, and Zena Stein, MD, as one of the first National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) AIDS Research Centers (ARC). Now directed by Robert H. Remien, PhD, along with Co-Directors Claude Ann Mellins, PhD and Gina Wingood, ScD, MPH, the HIV Center is one of the oldest and most productive continuously funded AIDS research centers in the United States, coordinating U.S.-based research and continuing to have an international footprint with research projects in many countries. With its renewal in 2018, the HIV Center is guided by the theme, The Science of Ending the HIV/AIDS Epidemic (EtE): Efficacy to Effectiveness at Scale, and its emphasis on implementation research as well as research at the intersection of behavioral, social, and biomedical sciences. The HIV Center works to address U.S. and global EtE goals by addressing three major behavioral and social science challenges: vulnerabilities that facilitate risk for HIV transmission and impede adherence to prevention and care, including mental health and substance use problems and other social and health disparities that influence outcomes along the HIV prevention and care continuum; use of innovative behavioral and social science research to maximize effectiveness of biomedical technologies; and optimal translation of this research into culturally and contextually sound evidence-based interventions and structurally competent practices and policies for maximum public health impact.

The HIV Center also increases the capacity of current and future generations of scientists, service providers, and community and policy leaders. Faculty and collaborators come from a range of schools and departments at Columbia University, academic centers of excellence throughout the NY region such as the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy (CUNY SPH), and departments of health at city, state, and international levels. Housed within the Division of Gender, Sexuality, and Health of the Columbia University Department of Psychiatry, the HIV Center also supports the work of an NIMH Postdoctoral Fellowship Program on Behavioral Sciences Training in HIV Infection (T32-MH019139). Directed by Theodorus G.M. Sandfort, PhD, along with Co-Directors Claude Ann Mellins, PhD, and John Santelli, MD, MPH, the program provides innovative training in gender, sexuality, and mental health research as applied to HIV prevention and HIV treatment and care across populations in both national and global contexts.