Prioritizing Feminist Research Agendas: the Long-term Impact of the FRI Seed Grant Competition
The FRI Seed Grant Competition was a grant program from the Feminist Research Institute that allowed UC Davis faculty to apply for funding for collaborative research projects rooted in feminist approaches. While the Feminist Research Institute no longer has access to this funding source, even years later, we are seeing the benefits of investing in feminist-centered research projects.
Dr. Jessica Draughon Moret, Professor of Clinical Nursing at the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing, was a recipient of the FRI Seed Grant Competition for her project, “Empowerment or Further Assault on Female Autonomy? Exploring Issues of Race, Class, and Power in Post-Sexual Assault HIV Prevention.” Now nearly a decade later, the initial research from this seed funding has resulted in the recently published study “Decision-making in HIV Post-Exposure Prophylaxis: Insights from Sexual Assault Survivors,” co-authored by Dr. Tequila Porter, Dr. Lakynn Web, Dr. Patricia Fernandez, Dr, Jocelyn C. Anderson, and Dr. Jessica Draughon Moret.
As we have all become too familiar through recent news, sexual assault is a pervasive issue in our culture. In addition to the emotional, physical, and psychological harm caused, sexual assault is also linked to STIs and HIV transmission. Because of this risk, timely treatment after sexual assault is crucial. While previous studies have explored individual and interpersonal decision-making factors on STI and HIV treatment after sexual assault, most studies have not focused on how post-sexual assault health care visits impact this decision-making process for survivors. However, this recent study points to the need for trauma-informed care and better educational practices in healthcare settings to help patients make empowered decisions related to HIV treatment, specifically related to HIV Post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP).
Dr. Moret shares about the impact of receiving this initial funding all those years ago, “While this publication appears nearly a decade after my original FRI Seed Grant award, it would not have been possible without that initial investment. Research trajectories are not always linear, and this project experienced delays related to major life events, competing responsibilities, and the realities of conducting longitudinal scholarly work. Even so, the grant and FRI leaderships' flexibility provided critical support for collecting the data that ultimately led to this publication and contributed to subsequent externally funded research.”
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