Collaborators

Investigators interested in initiating a new substudy or collaborative research within the WIHS begin by submitting a Concept Sheet submission form for approval by the Executive Committee (EC). Start with a search of existing concepts on the MWCCS Administrative website to ensure there is no overlap with current studies. Please notify the site PI and PD well in advance (3-6 months) of an intended grant submission for assistance planning recruitment and methods, and preparing your proposed budget. Depending on the proposed project and available resources, investigators may either:

1. Budget for existing MWCCS staff to implement the study within the cohort; or
2. Hire their own staff and recruit members of the cohort by leaving flyers at the research sites.

The Concept Sheet submission form may be found here.  To determine the best approach for your proposed project, contact Heather Freasier.

Interested investigators may also submit a Concept Sheet to work with existing MWCCS data and/or specimens. Contact Heather Freasier for a password to access the administrative website where researchers are encouraged to review the downloadable list of existing concepts click here prior to initiating new areas of investigation.

Investigators need to ensure that data requests remain within the scope of an approved concept sheet. If investigators want to explore additional aims or hypotheses, an amended concept sheet needs to be submitted for approval by the EC.

A third-party agreement needs to be executed by anyone requesting data who is not already covered by the master DUA (MWCCS sites). This agreement is also used when a limited dataset with exact dates (instead of a de‐identified dataset) is needed, regardless of institutional affiliation (for example: exact dates of diagnosis instead of diagnosis year needed, geocode data, etc.):

https://mwccsorg.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/mwccs-concept-sheet-and-publication-policies_042820.pdf