Curr HIV/AIDS Rep (2010) 7:185–193 4. Multidisciplinary collaborations to holistically treat individuals are vital for the success of HIV interven- tions. Sexual health must be integrated along with physical and psychological health. Importantly, HIV/ AIDS researchers need to integrate black psychology in order to identify new concepts that have been over- looked and understudied, which may impact sexual decision-making and motivations for improving overall health. 5. Interventions need to be sensitive to perceived racial/ ethnic, gender, and sexual orientation stigma and address how multiple minority statuses for African Americans can weigh on individuals and affect their lives. Also, since these mediators are rarely included in research, investigators must endorse and advocate for new measures to assess these variables. 6. Finally, researchers, clinicians, and community partners all need to be culturally competent in order to work with at-risk African Americans. Thus, cultural compe- tency trainings must be developed. It is also important to address the dearth of African Americans who are funded to conduct research with African Americans [48]. While there are some efforts to increase the number of racial and ethnic minority investigators [49], currently, very few receive adequate research funding [50]. In addition to needing training and mentoring programs to conduct culturally congruent research, it is necessary to foster an open dialogue with established reviewers of grants and journals on the introduction of nontraditional and innovative concepts that need further study. In summary, developing HIV interventions that only replicate what earlier interventions accomplished will not decrease the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in African American communities. Acknowledgment of the limitations that currently exist in HIV research is necessary so that innovative translational biomedical research can advance. Research strategies and community approaches that are consistent with African American ideology and culture and that address the challenges of African Americans have the potential for instituting successful behavior change. Acknowledgments The authors would like to express their appre- ciation to Tony Earls, MD, HSPH, for his initiative in bringing together the authors and for his support of this manuscript. Funding to write this manuscript was provided from the National Institute of Mental Health (Center for Culture, Trauma, and Mental Health Disparities [5P50MH073453] and the ES-HIM Project [1 R34 MH077550]), the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities (UCLA-Drew Project EXPORT—2P20MD000182), and the UCLA Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) NIH/NIAID AI028697 and the UCLA AIDS Institute. Disclosure No potential conflicts of interest relevant to this article were reported. 191 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License which per- mits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited. References Papers of particular interest, published recently, have been highlighted as: Of importance Of major importance 1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Updates to racial/ ethnic disparities in diagnosis of HIV/AIDS—33 states, 2001– 2005. MMWR 2007, 56:189–193. 2. U.S. Census Bureau: Quick facts, 2000. Available at http:// quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html. Accessed May 2010. 3. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Compendium of HIV prevention interventions with evidence of effectiveness. US Depart- ment of Health and Human Services 2001. Available at http://www. cdc.gov/hiv/topics/research/prs/index.htm. 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