Philadelphia Support and Scale Up of HIV Prevention Services in Sexual Health Clinics - Over a 5-year period beginning in June 2024, the City of Philadelphia, through its Department of Public Health (PDPH), proposes to support the City’s Ending the Epidemic initiative by using CDC-RFA-PS-24-0003 cooperative agreement funding to maintain existing and scale up new HIV prevention services in the City’s sexual health clinics. The proposed project builds on CDC-RFA-20-2010 Component A and Component C funding awarded to the PDPH Division of HIV Health (DHH) for Health Center 1 (HC1), the treatment arm of the STD Control Program within the Department’s Division of Disease Control (DDC). HC1, the proposed recipient, will collaborate extensively with DDH’s extensive and ongoing EHE and HIV prevention activities to implement two primary strategies through partnerships with both internal and external organizations in the community. Currently, 18,658 people with diagnosed HIV (PWDH) are living in Philadelphia. This includes 382 new diagnoses of HIV in 2022. New diagnoses of HIV have decreased by 12.8% since 2018. The largest burden of HIV disease continues to impact men who have sex with men (MSM) and increasingly, persons who inject drugs (PWID). Overall, both newly diagnosed and prevalent HIV disease disproportionally affect Black and Brown communities. PDPH estimates a total of 8,750 HIV negative persons in Philadelphia during 2022 with a PrEP indication, with HIV-negative, non-Hispanic Black MSM and Hispanic MSM having the greatest proportion of PrEP indications (66% and 48%, respectively). Because of the City’s heavy HIV burden, Philadelphia was designated in 2019 as one of the initial jurisdictions eligible for the federal Ending the HIV Epidemic (EHE) initiative. By late 2020, A Community Plan to End the HIV Epidemic in Philadelphia was published. The EHE Plan’s primary goal is to achieve a 75% reduction in new HIV diagnoses by 2025 and a 90% reduction in new HIV diagnoses by 2030. Locally, activities are centered on the national EHE strategies to diagnose, treat, prevent, and respond to outbreaks, as well as locally-developed health equity and radical customer service activities that community stakeholders determined were necessary to meet EHE goals. The EHE Plan aligns with the Philadelphia Eligible Metropolitan Area Integrated HIV Prevention and Care Plan 2022-2026, a requirement of the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program for the 9-county region. Under PS-24-0003, HC1 will (1) strengthen clinic infrastructure and improve service delivery to address the syndemic of HIV and other STIs, and (2) foster partnerships in support of the local EHE initiative. Key expected outcomes include development of a new, more functional and informative Electronic Health Record system, re-establishment of a satellite STD clinic at a City-operated community health center in North Philadelphia, formal assessment of patient experiences and needs, targeted social media to reach the populations of focus, and enhanced partnerships with the PDPH Division of HIV Health as the principal internal partner, and externally with a range community groups reaching priority populations, providers, stakeholders, and the local HIV planning body.
