The Eastside of San Antonio, Texas, is a neighborhood of significant challenges, but also of an undefeated spirit and track record of creative, collaborative solutions. WestCare Texas’s proposed Promise Zone Navigators Addressing SA and HIV Risks (Promise Zone Navigators) is located in the Eastside Promise Zone, one of the localities identified by SAMHSA as hardest hit by the HIV epidemic. Designated as a Promise Zone due to high substance misuse rates, HIV rates, violent crime, and economic devastation (he average household income is $14,864, and the most impoverished San Antonio census tract is in the Promise Zone), this predominantly Hispanic and African American (90% combined) area is young, with 23.7% of its population ages 5-19 and 25.3% ages 20-39. Youth and adults ages 13-44 are the population of focus for this collaboration of outreach, prevention, testing, care, and peer navigation. San Antonio youth drink at a high rate: more than 42% of high school students reported using alcohol, with 56% of respondents living and/or attending school in the Promise Zone. Twenty-eight percent (28%) reporting binge drinking, a statistic corroborated by the Centers for Disease Control, which reports that San Antonio has the highest rate of binge drinking in the U.S. Bexar County, home to San Antonio, ranks third in the state for HIV and AIDS diagnoses and, according to the CDC, the number of people newly diagnosed with HIV has increased by more than 50 percent in the last decade. The average rate of infection in Bexar County was 19.1 cases per 100,000 compared to the U.S. average of 12.3 cases (2018). The overwhelming majority of people living with HIV in the county are men (85%); 63% are Hispanic, 19 percent are white; 16% are African American; and 48% are roughly the ages of the population of focus, 12-44. Promise Zone Navigators will bring Evidence-Based Practices that are currently non-existent in the Promise Zone, in order to increase HIV awareness, influence behavior about unprotected sex, and inform youth and young adults about the influence of substance misuse on risky behavior. With Peer Navigators, staunch community partners San Antonio Fighting Back, Ella Austin Community Center, Crosspoint Treatment Center, the influential organization 100 Black Men of San Antonio, high schools and colleges, Promise Zone Navigators will: 1) Expand capacity for HIV Counseling, Testing, and Linkage to 1000 youth and young adults throughout the five year project period, provide HCV testing to 500 youth in five years, and deliver Botvin Life Skills curriculum to 300 middle school students during the grant period; 2) Improve the ability of Promise Zone youth to function socially without alcohol and other drugs; 3) reduce substance misuse-related HIV transmission; and 4) Implement Social Network Strategies and public information messaging to provide environmental-level interventions including the EBPs Safe in the City, a short video to be shown in clinics throughout the area, and facilitate Sin Buscar Excusas/No Excuses monthly one-time educational sessions to men having sex with men (MSM). Through reducing risky behavior, therefore reducing HIV transmission rates, we can improve the health and happiness of this community.
