A System-Level Syndemic Approach to Improve HIV Care and Treatment for People from Racial and Ethnic Minority Groups – Evaluation and Technical Assistance Provider (ETAP)

JSI has been selected as the Evaluation and Technical Assistance Provider (ETAP) to support the System-Level Syndemic Approach to Improve HIV Care and Treatment for People from Racial and Ethnic Minority Groups funded by the Minority HIV/AIDS Fund and Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) HIV/AIDS Bureau (HAB) Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program (RWHAP) Part F Special Projects of National Significance. JSI will work in collaboration with NMAC to lead this project with Dr. Erin Starzyk and Naima Morales Cozier from JSI, joined by Harold Phillips from NMAC.

People from racial and ethnic minority groups face long-standing health and income inequities that have led to poor health outcomes over generations. These communities are disproportionately affected by HIV, co-occurring health conditions, and social determinants of health that make access to and retention in HIV care and treatment challenging. Syndemics occur when epidemics, health conditions, and environmental factors that interact with one another disproportionately affect marginalized communities contributing to an excess burden of disease within a population.

This Project will support six demonstration systems for four years to design, implement, and evaluate a syndemic approach to link and retain people with HIV from racial and ethnic minority groups in comprehensive and integrated care that includes services and support to address mental health, substance use, and critical social factors that impact health such as housing, intimate partner violence, and food insecurity. JSI will provide technical assistance and capacity strengthening to the demonstration systems as they implement their syndemic approaches, develop and implement a multi-system evaluation to assess the effectiveness and cost of their interventions, and disseminate evaluation findings, best practices, and lessons learned to foster replication by other HIV service systems.

The six demonstration systems are:

• AIDS Care Group- Chester, Pennsylvania
• Dallas County Health and Human Services – Dallas, Texas
• Maryland Department of Health – Baltimore, Maryland
• Montefiore Medical Center – Bronx, New York
• Positive Impact Health Centers – Atlanta, Georgia
• University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center – Albuquerque, New Mexico

The project expands on JSI’s longstanding history of collaboration with HRSA HAB, and the RWHAP to enhance care for people with HIV.