Centers

The Social Science Training and Research (STAR) Partnership represents a collaboration between Columbia University social scientists with expertise in HIV and leading Vietnamese researchers. The STAR Partnership creates linkages between the Department of Sociomedical Sciences (SMS) at the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, and the Center for AIDS Research and Training at Hanoi Medical University (HMU). The goals of this project are to:

• Provide training in the design and implementation of policy-relevant social science research to Hanoi Medical University faculty and advanced students, as well as to promising researchers from the broader Vietnamese HIV community;
• Draw on and complement intensive training workshops by collaborating with two independent research organizations, the Institute for Social Development Studies (ISDS) and the Center for Community Research on Health and Development (CCRD), to provide hands-on research opportunities for trainees in three pilot studies on the Social Organization of Masculinity and Sexual Risk, the Social Impact of Anti-retroviral Therapy (ART) and The Politics of Harm Reduction in Vietnam;
• Contribute to the institutional development of the Faculty of Public Health at Hanoi Medical University; and
• Maximize the STAR Partnership’s impact on policy and research by strengthening ties between HMU and the broader Vietnamese HIV research and policy community.

Our collaboration with one of Vietnam’s leading NGOs and its most prominent cultural institutions exemplifies our innovative approach to social science. In 2010 the STAR Partnership, the Centre for Community Health Research and Development (CCRD), and the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology (VME), launched "Pain and Hope - 20 years of HIV/AIDS in Vietnam," an exhibit marking the 20th anniversary of the first case of AIDS in Vietnam – a project that may well constitute one of the STAR Partnership’s most innovative contributions. By incorporating social science research, community-based collaborative production of original documentary footage, and Vietnamese material culture, the STAR Partnership aims to help create a public exhibit through which the meaning of HIV/AIDS can be opened to public dialogue and perhaps help reduce the heavily stigmatized representations in Vietnam.

As the first museum exhibit to focus on HIV in Vietnam, “Pain and Hope” was selected by the Vietnam Administration for AIDS Control as one of ten key events to commemorate the 2010 milestone.  The STAR Partnership is currently undertaking an evaluation to assess the exhibit’s impact on HIV stigma, an opportunity for mentored research experience for STAR trainees.