| Name | Description | Authors | Presenters |
|---|---|---|---|
| 08. ESCALATE: Building Equity with an Anti-Stigma NYC Team | HIV stigma is associated with poorer health outcomes including lower rates of treatment seeking, treatment adherence and viral suppression. Reducing stigma in the populations we serve is an essential step to end the HIV epidemic. The NYC DOHMH’s stigma-reduction team joined the HRSA-sponsored ESCALATE project in 2021, working with the National Minority AIDS Council to develop the following goals: Develop an anti-stigma framework; engage service providers in the ESCALATE project; examine Ryan White data collection practices and participate in an organizational self-assessment. The NYC ESCALATE team adopted the Health Stigma and Discrimination Framework, adapted it to HIV and collected resources to support the framework, including articles authored by our team members. This framework has subsequently been adopted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We are currently working to engage our Ryan White/EHE service providers in the ESCALATE project and, to this end, have presented at service provider and HIV Planning Council meetings. In addition, we have met with HRSA staff to explore ways in which Ryan White data can be collected in a less stigmatizing way. Finally, eleven staff participated in the first facilitated ESCALATE Organizational Self-Assessment (EOSA), the results of which were discussed and documented. The EOSA results and ESCALATE work confirmed that as a large public health organization, work is siloed, and there is a need for more formal policies regarding HIV stigma and further collaboration on stigma work being performed. Our team has recently joined the ESCALATE Learning Collaborative, which we hope will strengthen our anti-stigma work. | Julia Cohen, MSS; Jill Williams; Daniel Jung Hahn; Billy Fields; Kimbirly Mack; Grace Mackson, MPH; Lookman Mojeed, MPH | Julia Cohen, MSS, NYC Department Of Health and Mental Hygiene, Grace Mackson, MPH, NYC Department Of Health and Mental Hygiene |
| 05. Oral Health Preceptorships: A Holistic Approach to Addressing the Oral Health Needs for People with HIV | The oral health needs of People with HIV may be missed if the provider is ill-equipped to identify specific oral conditions and/or the patient presents with complicating co-morbidities. Through a Minority AIDS Initiative grant from the Northeast/Caribbean AETC at Columbia University, the NYSDOH AIDS Institute’s Oral Health Resource Center offers an oral health preceptorship program (OHPP) to licensed dentists and dental hygienists in New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands. We conducted a qualitative evaluation with program participants and concluded that the OHPP is an effective model to building a stronger HIV oral health workforce. | Laura E. O’Shea, MPH, Christopher M. Ferraris, LMSW, Stephen N. Abel, DDS, MSD | Laura O’Shea, MPH, New York State Department of Health, AIDS Institute |
| 23. Expanding Access to Hepatitis C Virus Care among People Who Use Drugs in New York State: HCV Telehealth Toolkit | The Clinical Education Initiative’s Hepatitis C and Drug User Health Center of Excellence (the Center) offers continuing medical education to enhance the capacity of New York State medical providers. In collaboration with a group of New York State experts, The Center developed the Hepatitis C Telehealth Toolkit to support traditional and non-traditional settings interested in providing hepatitis C virus (HCV) care via telehealth. Learning Objectives: (1) Discuss key components of the Hepatitis C Telehealth Toolkit, and (2) Describe the impact of expanding access to HCV care via telehealth on HCV elimination in New York State. | Lauren Walker, MPH; Charlotte Miller, MPH; Linda Wang, MD; Jeffrey Weiss, PhD, MS | Charlotte Miller, MPH, Clinical Education Initiative |
| 22. Place Matters: Why Are New York State’s Veterans Clustered in the EHE Region? | The 2021, New York State’s BRFSS Brief revealed an estimated 6.1% or 969,000 adults in the state were Veterans and 13.5% of those Veterans were 65 and older. BRFSS, administered annually by the State Department of Health, is a wealth of information on behaviors, risk factors, and preventative health services connected to leading causes of chronic and infectious diseases, disability, injury, and death. Notably absent from this report on Veterans are any highlighted findings on HIV in this marginalized population, especially given the State’s ETE initiative. According to America’s HIV Epidemic Analysis Dashboard (AHEAD), the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens are the designated EHE region of New York State. EHE regions are cities, states, or counties where new HIV infections are most concentrated. What makes this gap in reporting concerning is VA.gov’s Veteran Population Congressional Districts table calculates an estimated 158,839 or 16% of the state’s Veterans were clustered in state’s EHE Region in 2021.Theories drive hypothesis, data tests them. This poster will use the theoretical framework of engagement theory to hypothesize why in 2021, 16% of 6.1% of the population lived in a region with high HIV rates, given their reported co-morbidities. Engagement theory and the accompanying hypotheses should inform data collection on this marginalized population to shed light on their clustered representation in NYS’ EHE region and how to engage them around HIV challenges. | Lessie Branch, Ph.D. Public and Urban Policy | Lessie Branch, PhD, Special Assistant for Community Engagement, New York State Department of Veterans’ Services |
| 02. Building the Capacity of Five NYC Clinics to Use Data-Driven Approaches to Engage Out-of-Care Persons with HIV | The New York City (NYC) Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s Enhanced Data to Care (eD2C) program is a cross-collaboration between the Bureau of Hepatitis, HIV, and STIs’ Clinical Operations and Technical Assistance (COTA) program, the HIV Epidemiology Program’s Assess. Connect. Engage (ACE) Team, and five NYC clinics (eD2C sites). This collaboration leverages HIV surveillance and clinic data to innovatively identify, efficiently outreach, and strategically re-engage persons with HIV (PWH) who are out of care (OOC), never in care (NIC), or at risk of falling out of care (RFC). Since August 2021, the eD2C model has had to iteratively adapt to meet the needs of the program and has linked over 277 people and enrolled over 203 clients to receive enhanced HIV treatment and supportive services. Enhancing the capacity of clinics to use a data-to-care approach for outreach and evidence-informed services for engagement and retention is critical to supporting Ending the Epidemic efforts. A secure, bi-directional data transfer protocol generates line lists of persons with HIV confirmed to be truly OOC or NIC, allowing eD2C sites to streamline and prioritize their outreach efforts among persons with HIV who are OOC, NIC or RFC to receive HIV care. | Lookman Mojeed, MPH; Eleonora Jimenez-Levi; Jamie Huang; Renuka Varigonda; Anthony Romano | Lookman Mojeed, MPH, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene |
| 25. Enhancing Clinical Practice through CEI Trainings: A Multiyear Analysis | Due to frequent and rapid changes in the medical field, clinicians need to constantly update and enhance their knowledge and skills. To assess the effectiveness of the Clinical Education Initiative continuing medical education trainings and to identify areas for improvement, participants are requested to provide feedback through an e-participant feedback form. We analyzed data using descriptive and inferential statistical analyses to assess medical behavior change and the intend to implement the acquired knowledge in their clinical practice as a result of trainings. The results showed a positive impact of the high-quality and up-to-date trainings and resources offered, reflected by the reported clinicians’ intention to modify clinical practice by creating/revising policies, procedures, and treatment options, which ultimately translates into enhanced management and treatment outcomes for the NYS patients. | Monica Barbosu, MD, PhD, Ivelisse Rivera, MD, Hannah R. Murphy, PhD, Beatrice Aladin, MPA, Timothy Dye, PhD | Monica Barbosu, MD, PhD, Resource Center of Excellence CEI |
| 27. Community Collaboration to Serve Marginalized Communities in New York City: Tacos and Testing, Get Tested! | Tacos and Testing, Get Tested! is a promising public health initiative focused on Ending the HIV Epidemic (ETE), eliminating barriers to HIV, STI and Hepatic C testing and health screenings, and addressing health disparities among marginalized communities in NYC. | Ofelia Barrios, MA, Senior Director of Community Initiatives, Iris House | Ofelia Barrios, MA |
| 11. Multi-level factors influencing oral PrEP uptake, adherence, and sexual risk among brown and black men with heterosexual contact in NYC | This qualitative study explores multi-level factors influencing oral pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) uptake, adherence, and sexual risk among Black and Latinx men with heterosexual contact in New York City. The key findings include low sexual health literacy and high levels of HIV stigma among participants, varying attitudes towards PrEP between PrEP users and non-users, trust as a key determinant for sexual health decision making, the influence of hegemonic masculinity norms around HIV susceptibility and sexual behaviors, and participation in multiple, diverse sexual networks. Our findings point towards interventions at the patient-provider level (discussions around sexual health decision-making, on-demand PrEP, directly asking about sexual networks) and the necessity for research that understands how relational dynamics, hegemonic masculinity, and mixed social networks impact sexual risk behaviors among men with heterosexual contact in the United States. | Ohshue S. Gatanaga, BA; Dalila Victoria Lanza, MPH; Robert Pitts, MD; Ronald S. Braithwaite, MD; Sahnah Lim, PhD, MPH, MIA. | Ohshue S. Gatanaga, BA; Dalila Victoria Lanza, MPH |
| 13. Data-Driven Efforts to Address Health Disparities: Using the New York Citywide Immunization Registry (CIR) to Fine-Tune Mpox Vaccine Outreach | In May 2022, the sudden introduction of mpox (formerly known as monkeypox) among networks of MSM and transgender and gender-diverse people in the United States required a timely response by HIV prevention and treatment providers, including the STAR Program in Central Brooklyn, NY. This poster will graphically demonstrate the outcomes of STAR's two-year initiative intended to address disparities in mpox vaccine uptake and demonstrate the value of cross-referencing patient data with the New York Citywide Immunization Registry to assess follow-up needs. | Simon Korotzer-Mariani, Oberlin College, and Lori Hurley, PhD, MPH, MSW | Lori Hurley, PhD, MPH, MSW |
| 20. Onondaga County Health Department Bureau of Disease Control Sexual Health Assessment | In March of 2023, the Sexual Wellness Center began conducting a sexual health assessment of Onondaga County. This presentation represents the key findings of this project. | Sydney Gale, BA | Sydney Gale, Public Health Fellow, Onondaga County Health Department |
