EmpowHER - The goal of the EmpowHER: Empowering Minority Populations of Women at risk for HIV/AIDS for Equity in Recovery project is to increase engagement in care for racial and ethnic medically underserved women with substance use disorders (SUDs) and/or co-occurring SUDs and mental health conditions (COD) who are at risk for or living with HIV. The EmpowHER project builds on the existing partnership between Santa Maria Hostel (SMH) and Baylor College of Medicine's (BCM) Department of Family and Community Medicine (DFCM) whose addiction medicine faculty currently provide onsite medically managed withdrawal (detox) and limited office-based opioid use disorder treatment (OBOT) services for SMH clients. SMH, a regional safety net for lower income, uninsured, and indigent women, and primary referral for gender-specific (female) SUD treatment for 13-county Texas Public Health Region 6, serves primarily (>90%) uninsured women and their families through state-funded residential, outpatient, and OBOT services. SMH clients have high rates of sex work, sexual assault, and trafficking, in addition to injection drug use, resulting in high risk for HIV and viral hepatitis. EmpowHER will achieve its goal through attainment of the following objectives: 1. Provide comprehensive, evidence-based SUD/COD treatment and recovery support services, including needed screening, assessment, outpatient, residential, and medication treatments, supportive housing, recovery coaching, educational and career planning, parenting skills training, and trauma therapy services to 280 racial and ethnic medically underserved women with SUDs and/or COD who are at risk for or living with HIV. 2. Offer 100% of EmpowHER participants HIV and viral hepatitis testing on site at SMH and provide >=90% of participants testing during their first week of program enrollment. 3. Offer 100% of participants testing positive for HIV and/or viral hepatitis referral to HIV and/or hepatitis treatment providers in the community, facilitating participant acceptance of referral through motivational interviewing and peer recovery coaching. 4. Successfully link >=95% of participants testing positive for HIV and/or viral hepatitis to HIV/viral hepatitis treatment providers in the community within 30 days of positive screening test, through intensive case management and use of barrier buster funds, when needed, to cover costs such as lost ID replacement and transportation for eligibility and medical appointments. 5. Provide 100% of participants testing negative for HIV and viral hepatitis risk reduction education, case management, and referral to PrEP/PEP community service providers within 30 days of program enrollment. EmpowHER will help alleviate the high burden of HIV risk factors and unaddressed SUD/COD of racial and medically underserved women in Texas Public Health Region 6.
