AIDSVu Cities' Progress Toward HIV Care Continuum Goals: Cross-Sectional Study

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Epidemiology
• Health Services Research

Background:

• Public health surveillance is crucial for understanding HIV/AIDS epidemics.
• Surveillance data inform progress toward HIV care continuum targets and National HIV/AIDS Strategy (NHAS) goals.
• Disseminated data can prioritize interventions, locations, and populations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and report indicators of progress toward NHAS goals for US cities.
• To characterize progress using categorical metrics for the HIV care continuum.

Main Methods:

• Standardized SAS code used by health departments for comparable HIV surveillance data analysis.
• Calculated 2018 care continuum indicators (diagnosis, linkage, receipt of care, viral suppression) for 36 US cities.
• Progress toward 2020 NHAS goals assessed using categorical metrics (met/surpassed, within 25%, >25% from goal).

Main Results:

• All 36 cities (100%) were within 25% of meeting the goal for timely HIV diagnosis.
• 69% (25/36) of cities were more than 25% from achieving the goal for HIV viral load suppression.
• Only 8% (3/36) of cities were more than 25% from achieving the goal for receipt of care.

Conclusions:

• Graphical display of progress indicators aids stakeholder communication.
• AIDSVu analyses enable cities to benchmark progress against peer cities.
• Benchmarking and dialogue can address comparable HIV/AIDS challenges and opportunities.