JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

The majority of new HIV diagnoses among cisgender women in the United States occur in the Southern US. HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), a cornerstone of the federal Ending the HIV Epidemic (EHE) initiative, remains underutilized by cisgender women who may benefit, especially in the Southern US. Awareness and access to PrEP remain low among cisgender women. Moreover, improving PrEP reach among cisgender women requires more effectively engaging communities in the development of appropriate and acceptable patient-centered PrEP care approaches to support uptake. In a community-clinic-academic collaboration, this protocol uses an evidence-based community organizing approach (COA) to increase PrEP awareness and reach among cisgender women in Atlanta.

Objective:

To employ and evaluate a COA for engaging community members across four Atlanta area EHE-designated high-priority counties to increase PrEP awareness, interest, and connection to PrEP care among cisgender women.

Methods:

The COA, consisting of six stages of activity, will systematically develop the skills of community members to become leaders and advocates for HIV prevention inclusive of PrEP for cisgender women in their communities. We will utilize the evidence-based COA to develop and implement a PrEP-specific action plan to create broader community change by raising awareness and interest in PrEP, reducing stigma associated with HIV/PrEP, and connecting women to sexual health clinics providing PrEP services. In the first four stages, to prepare for and develop action plans, we will gather data from one-on-one interviews with up to 100 individuals across Atlanta to capture attitudes, motivations, and influences related to women’s sexual health with a focus on HIV prevention and PrEP. Informed by the community interviews, we will revise a sexual health curriculum inclusive of PrEP and community-centered engagement. We will then recruit and train community action team members to develop action plans to implement the curriculum during sequential community-located events. In the last two stages, we will implement and evaluate COA’s effect on PrEP awareness, interest, HIV/PrEP stigma, and connection to PrEP care among cisgender women community members.

Results:

Study activities began in December 2021 and are ongoing.

Conclusions:

Through a community-clinic-academic collaboration, this protocol proposes to mount a coordinated approach across diverse Atlanta counties to strengthen HIV prevention for cisgender women, and importantly, to create a sustainable systems approach to move new and sexual health innovations more quickly to cisgender women. Clinical Trial: N/A