Lessons Learned from Engage Montréal: Study End Meeting

Engage is a CIHR-funded Cohort Study of gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (GBM) in Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal. Since its inception Engage has published 26 research papers and 106 conference abstracts, meeting many of its research objectives including: measuring HIV and other STBBI infection occurrence and their determinants, documenting the uptake of behavioral and biomedical HIV and other STBBI prevention programs, and examining the associations between specific prevention initiatives, the occurrence of recent HIV and other STBBIs, and risk behavior. Engage created the opportunity to foster a rich network of local collaboration between researchers, knowledge users, and community members in Montreal. Data from Engage Montreal has been published by local collaborators in 8 research papers, used to inform local public health responses (e.g. Mpox vaccination intervention), presented in community summary reports and community events (e.g. community engagement committee meetings) and given rise to knowledge translation/transfer (KT) and community mobilization efforts such as infographics. Given that data collection for Engage Montreal concluded in January 2023, a local meeting is needed to be held to gather researchers, knowledge-users and community members to share an updated and complete summary of salient findings from Engage Montreal, fostering discussions on the usefulness of the data within the context of the communities' needs. This meeting will bookend the "Preliminary Findings" meeting Engage Montreal hosted in 2018, one year after data collection began. The Cafe is a critical opportunity to direct final KT efforts based on updated data, and to receive input on future studies and interventions. This will ensure that our work will reach knowledge users to improve access to and uptake of HIV/STBBI prevention services among Montreal GBM. The Cafe is planned to take place in person in late 2023 as a series of moderated panel presentations.