Linking Black women to PrEP care using warm handoff referrals from emergency departments to local PrEP clinics.

New Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) cases continue to disproportionately burden cisgender Black/African American women in the United States due to a confluence of structural and systemic factors. Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is a safe and effective HIV prevention option, yet there is a striking gap between PrEP eligibility and uptake among cisgender Black women. The current study evaluates a novel warm handoff process in a hospital emergency department setting linking eligible women to local PrEP clinics within 72 hours of hospital discharge in a large southwestern metropolitan city.

An Examination of Perceptions among Black Women on Their Awareness of and Access to Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP).

Cisgender Black women (CBW) experience 67% of new HIV diagnoses among women in the South. Progress toward ending the HIV epidemic requires researchers to explore perceptions of factors related to the decision to initiate pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) among CBW. Qualitative methods were used to explore how social and structural constructs influence individual decisions to use PrEP among 20 CBW through focus groups.