Friday, April 4, 2025
4/4/2025
Ryan White Part C Outpatient EIS Program - PROJECT TITLE: STAR Health Center-Downstate Early Intervention Services (EIS) Program APPLICANT NAME: The Research Foundation for SUNY on behalf of SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University ADDRESS: 450 Clarkson Avenue, MSC 1240, Brooklyn, NY 11203-2012 PROJECT DIRECTOR: Jack A. DeHovitz, MD, MPH, MHCDS, FACP FUNDING REQUESTED: $3,459,507 ($1,153,169 annually) OVERVIEW: The proposed project will provide continuation funding for the Special Treatment and Research (STAR) Program, a multidisciplinary HIV care, clinical education, and research program with a 33-year history of providing ambulatory HIV care for low-income, minority adults at STAR Health Center-Downstate (STAR-Downstate), located in Brooklyn (Kings County), NY. The STAR Health Center currently provides primary care, behavioral health care, and supportive services for over 1,200 adults with HIV. POPULATION GROUPS: Target populations include HIV-positive, low-income, minority adults, including immigrants, cisgender women, men who have sex with men, transgender populations, older people with HIV (OPWH), and reentrants, residing in Central Brooklyn, defined as the following United Hospital Fund (UHF) neighborhoods: Bedford-Stuyvesant/Crown Heights) (11212, 11213, 11216, 11233, 11238); East Flatbush/Flatbush (11203, 11210, 11225, 11226); Canarsie/Flatlands (11234, 11236, 11239); and East New York (11207, 11208). NEEDS: Central Brooklyn continues to be one of the most vulnerable areas in all of NYS, with limited access to healthy foods or opportunities for physical activity, high rates of violence and crime, wide economic disparities due to unemployment, and high poverty levels, and inadequate access to high-quality health care and mental health services. The Central Brooklyn population is predominantly low-income, reliant on public insurance, and facing some of the most acute health disparities on record in NYC and the nation. Rates of HIV/AIDS, STIs, diabetes, heart disease stroke, cancers, and behavioral disorders are inordinately high in this area, while access to primary health care is limited. STAR-Downstate is located in a Health Professional Shortage Area (HPSA) for both primary care and mental health. Almost all of the neighborhoods that Downstate serves have HHS designations of HPSA and/or Medically Underserved Area (MUA). The NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene 2022 data show that the overall HIV diagnosis rate in Brooklyn is 17.1/100,000 pop.; two Central Brooklyn neighborhoods (East New York and Bedford-Stuyvesant/Crown Heights) have higher rates (33.5 and 32.4, respectively) and the smallest proportion of viral suppression among Brooklyn people with HIV PWH. As a result of delayed testing, a sizeable portion of PWH in Brooklyn enter the care and treatment system late in the course of their disease; 27.3% of Brooklyn individuals with newly reported HIV diagnosis have a concurrent diagnosis of AIDS, the highest percentage citywide. As of 2022, Brooklyn ranks 2nd in NYC for new HIV diagnoses, AIDS diagnoses, and deaths. PROPOSED SERVICES: Key services to be supported by Ryan White Part C funding include HIV primary care; women’s health care; clinical pharmacist services; health education and risk reduction services, nutritional services; psychiatry and psychopharmacology management; case management, on-site enrollment into Medicaid or other health care coverage, and medical transportation. Other funding sources support HIV/HCV/STI testing, prenatal care, hormone therapy, PrEP/PEP, individual, group, and family counseling; substance use disorder counseling, harm reduction, support groups; buprenorphine; training and provision of Naloxone; specialized family case management; geriatric occupational therapy assessments, care coordination, patient navigation, directly observed therapy, peer support and education, and reentrant services.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).