The Chicago Center for HIV Elimination has been awarded $5 million over two years through the National Institute of Health’s (NIH) RADx Underserved Populations program. Led by the Third Coast CFAR Developmental Core Director, John Schneider, MD, MPH, the project will support a COVID-19 testing across eight rural and urban sites in the Central U.S. to engage two disenfranchised populations: low-income Latinx individuals and people of any ethnicity who’ve previously been involved with the criminal justice system, but are not currently incarcerated. 

As part of the Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADx) initiative, the RADx Underserved Populations (RADx-UP) program will support research that aims to better understand COVID-19 testing patterns among underserved and vulnerable populations; strengthen the data on disparities in infection rates, disease progression and outcomes; and develop strategies to reduce the disparities in COVID-19 testing. The University of Chicago is one of 32 institutions that received an NIH award through the RADx-UP program to support projects designed to rapidly implement COVID-19 testing strategies in populations disproportionately affected by the pandemic. 

Read the full article on the University of Chicago Department Medicine website.