International Maternal Pediatric Adolescent AIDS Clinical Trials Group Community Constituency Group Goals and Objectives

The CCG represents the community concerns and provides valuable input into the PACTG leadership and committee structure. This volunteer group was formed in 1991 to provide a forum for community interests in the Adult ACTG and the PACTG. The CCG has aided in the recruitment of women, children, adolescents, and other underrepresented populations in ACTG-sponsored clinical trials and has become a major mechanism for disseminating information about trials to these communities. The CCG provides an active voice of the infected and affected communities in the development and implementation of perinatal and pediatric clinical trials and has become a model for community participation that has been widely replicated. The CCG serves as an active participant on the PEC, RACs, Scientific Committees, and Resource Committees. The CCG members articulate the community perspective relevant to protocol design, development, and accrual and retention of participants.

The Community Constituency Group (CCG) represents community concerns in the ACTG and the PACTG. It is important to know that while the Adult ACTG and the PACTG are separate groups, the CCG functions as one group with both adult and pediatric representatives, and has a crucial role in keeping communication open between the two groups.

Since its inception, the CCG has been able to alleviate tension within activist factions while maintaining its activist roots. Furthermore, the CCG determines issues of concern in the HIV-affected community and identifies areas of potential tension or controversy. The CCG has improved the design of PACTG protocols, articulating issues relevant to the inclusion and exclusion criteria of many trials, and has advocated the removal of unnecessary restrictions that inhibited accrual of women and adolescents.