Center for Implementation Science Malaysian Implementation Science Training (MIST) Program

The Center for Implementation Science Malaysian Implementation Science Training (MIST) program is a collaboration between Yale School of Medicine and Universiti Malaya to train doctoral students in the field of implementation science with a focus on HIV.

Implementation science is the scientific study of methods and strategies that facilitate the uptake of evidence-based practice and research into regular use by practitioners and policymakers. It seeks to systematically close the gap between what we know and what we do by identifying and addressing the barriers that slow or halt the uptake of proven health interventions and evidence-based practices.

Despite an array of evidence-based interventions to address HIV, the HIV epidemic in Malaysia remains volatile. With over 100,000 cumulative HIV cases, Malaysia's rapidly expanding HIV epidemic is the fifth largest in the Asia-Pacific region and concentrated within the most at-risk populations, including people who inject drugs, men who have sex with men, and female sex workers. This is attributed to an inadequate scale-up of evidence-based interventions to meet HIV prevention and treatment efforts.

Therefore, given the need to expand evidence-based interventions into the continuum of HIV care in Malaysia, it is critical that we invest in implementation science and the next generation of researchers to curtail the burden of HIV disease. Designing, developing, and institutionalizing MIST at the Universiti Malaya is an offspring of Yale’s deep commitment to international training to improve population outcomes.

MIST is the first HIV training program in Malaysia that incorporates a human rights approach using implementation science. Building on over 15 years of successful collaborations in medical and public health research for key populations, with or at risk for HIV, we are thrilled to invite Universiti Malaya faculty and Malaysian scholars to engage in a cutting-edge learning experience on implementation science.

CERiA, faculty of medicine, Universiti Malaya, and Yale University are poised to focus implementation science to overcome health disparities for people who inject drugs, men who have sex with men, female sex workers, transgender populations, and prisoners.

The five-year program provides advanced training on HIV implementation science to produce a phased transfer of knowledge, skills, and expertise from Yale to Universiti Malaya. We envisage this program to serve as a model curriculum for training at Universiti Malaya that will eventually be led and sustained by local faculty with strong community, government, and international partnerships. Malaysian scholars are the training core of this hybrid program.

MIST adheres to three core aims, including:

1. Training 10 implementation research scholars and four implementation research faculty by integrating advanced training in HIV implementation science from Yale School of Medicine
2. Transferring knowledge and building capacity for the Universiti Malaya certification in HIV Implementation Science
3. Developing the Implementation Science Resource Hub to consolidate resources and build a partnership for better population outcomes.

To date, we have trained four Universiti Malaya faculty, enrolled four doctoral students, organized two summer bootcamps, and developed an e-library with resources on Implementation Research. The UM-Yale team launched MIST in a time of global isolation when the COVID-19 pandemic threatened the world, yet the program was able to train four dedicated Universiti Malaya scholars at Yale and successfully organized ‘MIST Summer Bootcamp-2021’ on a virtual platform when the pandemic was at its peak. The event brought 10 Yale experts on implementation science to Malaysia to train future leaders in HIV implementation science.

Our annual summer “boot camp” includes participation by all leading health systems, public health agencies, and non-profit organizations and serves as a platform for widespread knowledge dissemination. Individually and collectively, these high-impact efforts breathe life into the Universiti Malaya mission to “push the boundaries of knowledge and nurture aspiring leaders.”