A Focused PrEP Outreach and Navigation Demonstration Project Using STD Surveillance Data

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Epidemiology
• HIV/STD Prevention

Background:

• Despite advances, gaps persist in linking individuals to HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), especially those with recent STD diagnoses.
• Racial, ethnic, and gender disparities in HIV/STD acquisition and PrEP coverage necessitate innovative interventions.
• Connecting healthcare settings with community-based services is crucial for comprehensive HIV prevention.

Purpose of the Study:

• To implement and evaluate a demonstration project using STD surveillance data for HIV prevention navigation.
• To identify individuals with recurrent STDs for targeted HIV prevention counseling and PrEP linkage.
• To assess the feasibility of integrating public health surveillance with prevention services.

Main Methods:

• Leveraged Pennsylvania's STD surveillance database to identify eligible participants.
• Provided individualized HIV prevention navigation services to enrolled individuals.
• Collected baseline characteristics and evaluated implementation feasibility.

Main Results:

• Successfully enrolled 149 participants into the demonstration project.
• Demonstrated the feasibility of using STD surveillance data to expand PrEP outreach.
• Identified key lessons learned for similar data-to-prevention strategies.

Conclusions:

• Integrating STD surveillance data with prevention navigation is a feasible strategy to enhance PrEP outreach.
• This model can help address disparities in HIV prevention access.
• Further implementation of such data-driven approaches is warranted to improve public health outcomes.