HCV CHIM Community Advisory Committee

2:00 to 3:00pm Eastern Time

Six of seven members attended: Camilla Broderick, Jake Eberts, Carolina Reid, Thomas Smiley, Jennifer van Gennip, Caroline Pugh-Roberts.

Consensus statements are in italics.

Committee agenda

Introduced by Eberts, co-chair

• Committee purpose, goals
  • Role — two possible ends of a spectrum
    • Strictly advisory to this specific study’s researchers or
    • Independent body interacting with researchers, ethics committee for this study
      • Consensus: We believe our recommendations and thoughts should be treated as independent expressions of our collective opinion, and we think that we should be appropriately assertive about these recommendations as the study is designed, discussed, and implemented.

• Formalizing structure, guidelines, schedule, etc.
  • Dates: Try to set regular dates
    • Doodle poll for meetings for the rest of the year (2?)
  • Rules
    • Votes on recommendations
      • Do we make formal recommendations? What do those look like?
      • Do we need unanimity? (No — may be an issue of time if we must pursue complete consensus)
      • Recommendations should be written and can include breakdown of votes (abstain, support, disagree). In cases where there is no unanimity, the recommendation should explain both the majority opinion and the opinions of the minority. The recommendations will clearly delineate core consensus versus related opinions. (No naming members)
        • People will have at least three business days to look over drafts before they are sent out/publicized.
    • Attendance (quorum) — six out of seven for quorum; adjust as memberships grows
      • Jake/Jenn to make sure everyone is sent notes 
      • Attendance of at least half of the meetings in a year required 
    • Agenda setting
      • Contributing to agenda, when it must be available, outside reading
      • Anyone can do so, co-chairs will distribute agenda, but is free to modify based on group needs and for issues individual members want to discuss
    • Notes/transparency
      • Note taking, distribution of notes
        • Making things public might influence people’s willingness to voice opinion.
        • Notes are key for ensuring trust in the process
      • Do we make versions public?
        • Except for any sensitive information as designated by the research team, default to transparency and public availability of information, particularly notes from the meetings (anonymized) and recommendations. Provide website or other method to centralize this information, and for interested parties to see future meetings and register for attendance.
    • New members — New members recommended by existing members or researchers will be accepted absent objection by majority of current members.

• Concrete involvement:
  • Feedback to study
    • Informed consent documents
    • Ad design (in the future) 
  • Civil society interaction?
    • PWID focus groups
  • Upcoming dates
    • Early September: open letter release, NIH webinar 

• Compensation
  • CHIM Volunter Compensation Budget Draft — Jake drafted this based on our initial US$15-20k estimate. Compared with the default initially suggested in the draft study protocol.
    • Committee spent the last 10 minutes reviewing, no major issues raised; members encouraged to continue to evaluate and leave feedback as they feel appropriate.