Widespread closure of HIV prevention and care services places youth at higher risk during the COVID-19 epidemic (Preprint)
BACKGROUND Central to measuring the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on HIV is understanding the role of loss of access to essential HIV prevention and care services created by clinic and community-based organization closures. OBJECTIVE In this paper, we use data from a large, randomized controlled trial for adolescent GBMSM aged 13-18 to map HIV prevention services in four corridors of the US heavily impacted by HIV METHODS We identified and mapped LGBTQ+ friendly services offering at least one of the following HIV-related services: HIV testing; STI testing, PrEP/PEP; HIV treatment and care; other HIV-related services in 109 counties across four major interstate corridors heavily affected by HIV (US Census regions: Pacific (San Francisco, CA to San Diego, CA; 14 counties); South-Atlantic (Washington, DC to Atlanta, GA; 57 counties). RESULTS There were a total of 831 LGBTQ+ youth-friendly HIV service providers across the 109 counties. There was a range of LGBTQ+ youth-friendly HIV-service provider availability across counties (range: 0-14.33 per 10,000 youth aged 13-24 (IQR: 2.13), median: 1.09); 9 (8.26%) analyzed counties did not have any LGBTQ+ youth-friendly HIV service providers. The Pearson correlation coefficient for the correlation between county HIV prevalence and LGBTQ+ youth-friendly HIV service provider density was 0.16 (p=0.09), suggesting only a small, non-statistically significant linear relationship between a county’s available LGBTQ+ youth-friendly HIV service providers and their HIV burden. CONCLUSIONS As the COVID-19 epidemic continues, we must find novel, affordable ways to continue to provide sexual health, mental health and support services to LGBTQ+ youth. CLINICALTRIAL NA