Five Waves of an Online HIV Self-Test Giveaway in New York City, 2015 to 2018.

Background: HIV self-tests increase HIV status awareness by providing convenience and privacy, although cost and access may limit use. Since 2015, the New York City (NYC) Health Department has conducted 5 waves of an online Home Test Giveaway.

Methods: We recruited adult cisgender men who have sex with men (MSM) and transgender and gender-nonconforming (TGNC) individuals who had sex with men, who were living in NYC, not previously HIV diagnosed, and using paid digital advertisements (4-8 weeks per wave).

Redefining Prevention and Care: A Status-Neutral Approach to HIV.

Recent biomedical advances inspire hope that an end to the epidemic of HIV is in sight. Adopting new approaches and paradigms for treatment and prevention in terms of both messaging and programming is a priority to accelerate progress. Defining the key sequential steps that comprise engagement in HIV care has provided a useful framework for clinical programs and motivated quality improvement initiatives.

What is health communication and how does it affect the HIV/AIDS continuum of care? A brief primer and case study from New York City.

This article responds to key questions related to health communication that are commonly asked in the HIV/AIDS arena: "What is health communication?"; "What is its role beyond HIV prevention?"; and "How can it be used to achieve better HIV/AIDS outcomes?" We review how communication scientists think about their own discipline and build on a basic definition of communication as a fundamental human process without which most individual, group, organizational, and societal activities could not happen, including how people think about and respond to health issues such as HIV and AIDS. Diverse factors and processes that drive human behavior are reviewed, including the concept of ideation (what people know, think, and feel about particular behaviors) and the influence of communication at multiple levels of a social ecological system. Four main functions of communication-information seeking and delivery, persuasion, social connection and structural/cultural expression and maintenance-are linked to a modified version of the Department of Health and Human Services Continuum of Care and are used to conceptualize ways in which communication can achieve better HIV/AIDS outcomes.