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The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) funded RADAR in 2014 to collect multilevel, longitudinal data and biospecimens from an ethnically and racially diverse cohort of young, sexual and gender minorities (SGM; e.g., men who have sex with men (MSM), transgender women, gender non-conforming individuals) who were assigned male at birth (AMAB) (current core cohort n=1,113). The primary objective of this study is to apply a multilevel perspective to a syndemic of health issues associated with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in this population. The multilevel design focuses on individual, dyadic (i.e., sexual and romantic relationships), network (i.e., social, drug, and sexual connections) and biologic factors that may be associated with HIV. The cohort contains both HIV-negative and HIV-positive individuals, which allows for the development of a repository of biospecimens and HIV sequence data from both pre-infection and post-infection visits that will help facilitate future projects evaluating substance use, HIV risk, and pathogenesis.

A multiple cohort, accelerated longitudinal design was utilized by initially enrolling two existing SGM cohorts and then expanded through the use of convenience and snowball sampling methods. Enrollment criteria varied slightly based on the recruitment method, but overall inclusion criteria required participants to be AMAB, between 16 and 29 years of age, report having had sex with a man in the prior year or identify as a SGM, live in the Chicago metropolitan area, and be an English speaker. Study recruitment opened in February 2015. Participants are followed through the developmental period of late adolescence to early adulthood, which is a critical period of initiation and acceleration of sexual behavior and substance use. Study visits occur every six months.

Project STRIDE is a three-year research project that examines the effect of stress and minority identity related to sexual orientation, race/ethnicity and gender on mental health. The research describes social stressors that affect minority populations, explores the coping and social support resources that they utilize as they confront these social stressors, and assesses the associations of stress and coping with mental health outcomes including mental disorders and wellbeing. The study also explores the impact of various identity characteristics, such as whether an identity is viewed positively or negatively, or whether it is prominent or not to the relationship of stress and mental health outcomes.

The study, using extensive quantitative and some qualitative measures, is a longitudinal survey of 525 men and women between the ages 18 and 59 who are residents of New York City. Socio-demographic information collected about respondents included age, education, race and Hispanic ethnicity, adopting the measures developed and used by the United States Census Bureau in the United States population survey of 2000. In addition to these items, racial/ethnic identity was also assessed with the question "What is the country of origin related to your or your family's ethnic or national background, if any?" Respondents were allowed to select up to two nations from a comprehensive listing. For the purposes of the study, the instrument also assessed whether or not participants were natives of New York City or migrated as adults. Additional demographic variables include employment status, religion, relationship status, and sexual orientation.