Implications of Disruptions in HIV-Related Metrics

Rigorous and timely HIV-related surveillance is essential to monitoring progress toward national, state, and local programmatic goals, making midcourse corrections, and informing policymaking. Decades of work have gone into making HIV surveillance a leading example in public health measurement systems. However, some disruption of, and uncertainty about this key surveillance system has begun. Here, we described the uncertainty regarding the National HIV Behavioral Surveillance (NHBS) system, estimation of HIV incidence, and tracking of HIV-related health disparities. Further, we articulate potential disruptive impact on the field and make recommendations so as to rectify these challenges to the HIV surveillance data systems before further harm is done. While it is still possible to end the HIV epidemic by 2030 in the United States, a strong, rigorous, comprehensive and timely measurement system for key metrics is a necessity.