Syringe Services Programs’ Role in Ending the HIV Epidemic in the U.S.: Why We Cannot Do It Without Them

UNSTRUCTURED Objectives: America’s HIV Epidemic Analysis Dashboard (AHEAD) is a data visualization tool that displays relevant data on the 6 HIV indicators provided by CDC that can be used to monitor progress towards ending the HIV epidemic in local communities across the U.S. The objective of AHEAD is to make data available to stakeholders that can be used to measure national and local progress towards 2025 and 2030 Ending the HIV Epidemic in the U.S. (EHE) goals and to help jurisdictions make local decisions that are grounded in high-quality data. Methods: AHEAD displays data from public health data systems (e.g., surveillance systems, Census data), organized around the six EHE indicators (incidence, knowledge of status, diagnoses, linkage to HIV medical care, viral suppression, and PrEP coverage). Data are displayed for each of the EHE priority areas (48 counties Washington, D.C. and San Juan, PR) which accounted for more than 50% of all U.S. HIV diagnoses in 2016 and 2017 and seven primarily Southern states with high rates of HIV in rural communities. AHEAD also displays data for the 43 remaining states for which data are available. Data features prioritize interactive data-visualization tools that allow users to compare indicator data stratified by sex at birth, race, age, and transmission category within a jurisdiction (when available) or compare data on EHE indicators between jurisdictions. Results: AHEAD was launched on August 14, 2020. In the 11 months since its launch, the Dashboard has been visited 26,591 times by 17,600 unique users. About a third of all users returned to the Dashboard at least once. On average, users engaged with 2.4 pages during their visit to the Dashboard, indicating that the average user goes beyond the informational landing page to engage with one or more pages of data and content. The most frequently visited content pages are the Jurisdictions webpages. Conclusions: The Ending the HIV Epidemic plan is described as a “whole of society” effort. Societal public health initiatives require objective indicators and require that all societal stakeholders have transparent access to indicator data at the level of the health jurisdictions responsible for meeting the goals of the plan. Data transparency empowers local stakeholders to track movement towards EHE goals, identify areas with needs for improvement, make data-informed adjustments to deploy the expertise and resources required to locally tailor and implement strategies to end the HIV epidemic in their jurisdiction.

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Data-Driven Goals for Curbing the U.S. HIV Epidemic by 2030

AIDS and Behavior ◽

10.1007/s10461-019-02442-7 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 23 (3) ◽

pp. 557-563 ◽

Cited By ~ 11

Author(s):

Heather Bradley ◽

Eli S. Rosenberg ◽

David R. Holtgrave

Keyword(s):

Data Driven ◽

Hiv Epidemic ◽

The U.S

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Men Who Have Sex With Men and Women: Pieces of the U.S. HIV Epidemic Puzzle

Sexually Transmitted Diseases ◽

10.1097/01.olq.0000233666.67788.fc ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 33 (10) ◽

pp. 596-598 ◽

Cited By ~ 15

Author(s):

Adaora A. Adimora ◽

Robert E. Fullilove

Keyword(s):

Men And Women ◽

Hiv Epidemic ◽

Sex With Men ◽

The U.S

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A National Hiv Clinical Mentorship Program: Enabling Zambia to Accelerate Towards the Controlling the Hiv Epidemic

10.21203/rs.3.rs-151655/v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Mary Adetinuke Boyd ◽

Sombo Fwoloshi ◽

Peter A. Minchella ◽

James Simpungwe ◽

Terence Siansalama ◽

...

Keyword(s):

People Living With Hiv ◽

Viral Load Suppression ◽

Mentorship Program ◽

Hiv Epidemic ◽

Level Data ◽

Control And Prevention ◽

Living With Hiv ◽

Clinical Mentorship ◽

Regular Site ◽

The U.S

Abstract Background Although Zambia has increased the proportion of people living with HIV (PLHIV) who are on antiretroviral therapy (ART) in recent years, progress toward HIV epidemic control remains inconsistent. Some districts are still failing to meet the UNAIDS 90/90/90 targets where 90% of PLHIV should know their status, 90% of those who know their status should be receiving sustained ART, and 90% of those on ART should have documented viral load suppression (VLS) by 2020. Providing consistently excellent HIV services at all ART health facilities is critical for achieving the UNAIDS 90/90/90 targets and controlling the HIV epidemic in Zambia. Zambia Ministry of Health (MoH), in collaboration with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), aimed to achieve these targets through establishing a national HIV clinical mentorship program in which government-employed mentors were assigned to specific facilities with a mandate to identify and ameliorate programmatic challenges. Methods Mentors were hired, trained and deployed to individual facilities in four provinces to mentor staff on quality HIV clinical and program management. The pre-mentorship period was July 2018–September 2018 and the post-mentorship period was July 2019–September 2019. Results Review of key programmatic indicators from the pre and post-deployment periods revealed HIV testing yield improved from 4.2–6.8% (P < 0.001) as fewer HIV tests were needed despite the number of PLHIV being identified and placed on ART increasing from 492,613 to 521,775, and VLS increased from 84.8–90.1% (p < 0.001). Conclusions Key considerations in the establishment of an HIV clinical mentorship program include having a government-led process of regular site level data review and continuous clinical mentorship underpinned by quality improvement methodology.

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