The National Institutes on Health (NIH) will award a total of $2 million in research grants to study the interrelationship between use of illicit drugs, poor decisionmaking, and HIV/AIDS infection.

"Drug Abuse, Risky Decision Making and HIV/AIDS Grants" of up to $200,000 each will be made under the R01, R03, and R21 research grant mechanisms. Grants are intended to "stimulate exploratory and developmental research that will increase understanding of how drugs of abuse or processes of addiction influence decisions about high-risk sexual behavior, thereby enhancing vulnerability for acquiring or transmitting HIV," according to the grant announcement.

"Research supported by this announcement will emphasize interdisciplinary studies that incorporate approaches from psychology, economics, anthropology, sociology, decision sciences, neuroscience and computational modeling," according to NIH. "Hypothesis driven research and modeling approaches that can guide empirical testing are encouraged. The study of decisions to engage in risky sexual behavior must be clearly the central focus of the proposed research."

About a dozen grants will be awarded.

Eligible applicants include nonprofits, government agencies, schools, public-housing authorities, for-profit companies, and foreign entities. For more details, see the full grant announcement online.