Matthew D. Skinta, PhD, ABPP, chair
Fayth M. Parks, PhD, chair-elect
Maggie Chartier, PsyD
Tiffany Chenneville, PhD
Martin Y. Iguchi, PhD
Christina S. Meade, Ph.D
Sherry Wang, PhD
David Martin, PhD, ABPP
Cherie Mitchell, MHS
The mission of the Ad Hoc Committee on Psychology and AIDS (COPA) is to guide the development and implementation of the American Psychological Association's organizational response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Members of COPA carry out this mission each year by attending two face-to-face meetings held in conjunction with the spring and fall consolidated board and committee meetings and by participating in monthly, one-hour conference calls. Additionally, members of COPA regularly communicate with AIDS Office staff and each other by email and phone in order to plan and implement the committee's various initiatives.
COPA was established by the APA Council of Representatives for an initial three year period in 1990, reauthorized for an additional five years in 1993, reauthorized for an additional five years in 1998, with subsequent five-year reauthorizations in 2003 and 2008. A formal request for reauthorization of COPA was completed in 2013, approved by COPA's parent board, the Board for the Advancement of Psychology in the Public Interest (BAPPI), at its November 2013 meeting, with final approval by the APA Board of Directors on Feb. 19, 2014.
In 2014, COPA's membership was diverse in terms of race/ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation — one heterosexual, African-American woman; one heterosexual Hispanic woman; two heterosexual Caucasian women; one heterosexual Caucasian man; and one Caucasian gay man.
From its formation in August 1990 until 2013, the membership of COPA consisted of six demographically and professionally diverse psychologists with extensive HIV/AIDS experience and one non psychologist with community-based HIV/AIDS experience who was self-identified as an HIV+ individual. Beginning in 2013, COPA membership was reduced to six members per term under the direction of BAPPI to be consistent with the standards for membership across APA Public interest committees.
In the fall of 2007, COPA proposed to BAPPI a revision of COPA membership that would enable community perspectives to be obtained from a variety of individuals who live openly with HIV/AIDS. The proposed revision of COPA membership was approved by BAPPI and APA governance staff in December 2008.
Instead of having just one non-psychologist member, COPA now identifies and involves people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHAs) on various COPA initiatives. This procedure enables COPA to identify individuals with expertise related to the specific topics scheduled for discussion. This change was needed because HIV/AIDS research and practice has become highly specialized as efforts are tailored to address distinct sub-populations with each sub-population having specific needs and issues that require specialized expertise. It became untenable to expect that one person could fully or accurately reflect “the community perspective” on such a diverse array of matters. COPA has established an ongoing relationship with the National Minority AIDS Council (NMAC) for the purpose of recruiting PLWHAs for specific meetings and discussions. This process ensures more meaningful engagement of affected communities because those participating in such discussions are chosen for their unique capacities to offer consultation about the topic at hand. Additionally, this approach enables COPA to strengthen its relationships with the two major Washington-based national organizations representing people living with HIV/AIDS. By forging this new way of relating to these national organizations, COPA has also strengthened its HIV/AIDS advocacy work which is more effective when done in collaboration with representatives from affected communities.
In the years to come, COPA intends to fill its six formal positions with psychologists who are APA members. Participation of PLWHAs recruited through NMAC and other organizations for their specific expertise on topics slated for discussion will occur on an ongoing basis.
During the past year, COPA performed a variety of consultative functions and also was active in various initiatives. Ongoing consultations and projects are briefly summarized below:
In collaboration with the Public Interest Government Relations Office (PI-GRO) and the Office on AIDS, COPA members articulated and advanced APA's HIV/AIDS goals, including: 1) continued federal investments in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) HIV/AIDS behavioral research; 2) integration of mental health and substance use services in HIV/AIDS medical care; 3) sustained federal investments in domestic HIV/AIDS programs; and 4) global AIDS, including PEPFAR and global LGBT human rights legislation. Additional policy and advocacy activities in which COPA participated include:
Matthew D. Skinta, PhD, ABPP, COPA chair and Christina Meade, PhD, COPA member, served as editors and organizers of the Psychology & AIDS Exchange newsletter addressing the HIV/AIDS and Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) syndemic (April 2016). This project was developed in collaboration with participants of the BAPPI-sponsored symposium entitled, “Intimate Partner Violence and HIV: Intersectionality and the Accumulation of Risk” that occurred at the 2015 APA Annual Convention.
Maggie Chartier, PsyD, MPH, and Tiffany Chenneville, PhD, are serving as lead editors for the upcoming issue of the Psychology & AIDS Exchange newsletter which will focus on the legal and health ramifications of laws intended to criminalize those living with HIV. This collaborative project was based upon the consultation received by advocacy organizations when COPA developed its Resolution Opposing HIV Criminalization for APA, and reflects a variety of psychological, public health, and legal experts. It will be published online in the spring of 2017.
COPA’s blog series, which was launched on World AIDS Day, 2014, has continued with important topical blogs contributed by COPA members and the mentees within the Cyber Mentors program. As reported in the 2015 COPA annual report, the blog series is incredibly popular, particular for coverage of topics such as stigma and PrEP.
In 2008, John Anderson, PhD, was awarded a grant to administer Cyber Mentors: A Sustainable Model for Developing Minority HIV Researchers, an innovative research mentorship program run through the Office on AIDS and designed to prepare junior behavioral scientists for successful independent research careers in HIV/AIDS and health disparities. This program was renewed in 2013 with COPA member (and 2014 COPA chair), Velma McBride Murry, PhD, serving as co-principal investigator, and Tiffany Townsend, PhD, APA staff member (Office on Ethnic Minority Affairs), serving as principal investigator of the grant. The program incorporates the following specific aims: (1) to maintain and strengthen the Cyber Mentors Program, an innovative mentorship program delivered by the APA that is national in its scope and uses web-based technologies to prepare mentees to become independent HIV/AIDS researchers; (2) to expand and sustain the network of volunteer senior mentors who support the selected mentees in developing successful independent research careers in the HIV/AIDS arena; and (3) to recruit, train, and support mentees who are committed to independent research careers focused on HIV/AIDS in ethnic minority communities. COPA provides ongoing consultation for this program. In January of 2016, six new protégés were accepted into the program. Another 17 joined them in the fall. Currently, we have 21 active protégés. All of them participated in a 15 week grant writing workshop series. Many of them participated in our grant writing mock review here in Washington, D.C. The Cyber Mentors program is currently on a no cost extension that will end July 2017. As a result, it will longer accept additional protégés into the program.
In 2009, the APA Office on AIDS was awarded funding from the Center for Mental Health Services of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to continue the HIV Office for Psychology Education (HOPE) Program for an additional five years. In 2011, additional funding was provided to expand its HIV/AIDS training efforts in the 12 U.S. metropolitan areas most affected by HIV/AIDS. In 2014, members of COPA assisted by providing ongoing consultation to HOPE program staff as they developed new programs. Funding for this program ended in September 2014.
In 2014, SAMHSA issued a funding announcement under a different funding mechanism emphasizing a different model for delivery of services. The result was a collaborative effort among EDC, APA, the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) and the American Psychiatric Association (ApA) to launch a national educational program emphasizing distance learning methodology for mental health providers. The HIV Professional Development Program was established to address these efforts. In 2016, more than 380 psychologists and allied health providers attended webinars, with an additional 120 attending in-person training events hosted by the program.
For the 2017 APA Annual Convention, COPA has prepared a collaborative symposium "Past, Present and Future of HIV/AIDS Science and Practice in Psychology" for which the Committee on Psychology and AIDS (COPA) is the lead sponsor with four divisions (Div. 27 Society for Community Research and Action; Div. 28 Society for Psychopharmacology and Substance Use; Div. 35 Society for the Psychology of Women; Div. 38 Society for Health Psychology), most of the Public Interest Directorate’s committees (Committee on Children, Youth and Families; Committee on Socioeconomic Status; Committee on Ethnic Minority Affairs; Committee on Women in Psychology) as well as the Committee on Early Career Psychologists (CECP) and Committee on Rural Health (CRH). This symposium topic is both broad and timely, and was submitted for Continuing Education credits. Also, it includes speakers which are known experts and federal officials: Ramani Durvasula, Ph D; Richard Jenkins, PhD; Stephen Brady, PhD; Richard Wolitski, PhD; Karen S. Ingersoll, PhD; Eugene W. Farber, PhD, ABPP. The symposium will be co-chaired by Fayth M. Parks, PhD, COPA chair-elect, and Sherry C. Wang, PhD.
On Saturday, Aug. 6, the Office on AIDS hosted the Psychology and AIDS Leadership Awards at the 2016 APA Convention in Denver. Matthew Skinta, PhD, ABPP, Chair, Committee on Psychology and AIDS (COPA) welcomed everyone. Current committee members Sherry Wang, PhD, and Fayth Parks, PhD, and Office on AIDS director Dr. David Martin also greeted COPA alumni and invited guests. Special remarks from Perry Halkitis, PhD, April Thames, PhD and former APA President Nadine Kaslow, PhD, highlighted the accomplishments of award winners Dr. Eugene Farber, Emory University School of Medicine and Dr. Kevin Robertson, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Each award recipient gave acceptance remarks. Following the formal program, attendees enjoyed refreshments and continued celebrating the achievements of these outstanding scholars.
Consistent with its mission, COPA is committed to the ongoing pursuit of the following objectives: